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Design.Special 2026

Shining light

Axel Meise is the founder and head designer of Occhio and has a clear aspiration when it comes to luminaires and light: people should feel good with Occhio products 

At Milan Design Week 2026, Occhio is presenting the Era luminaire series, among other things. A solid glass body is carved out of a single block with the utmost precision and polished to maximum brilliance. That's what you call a world first. Which suits the 63-year-old who is never satisfied with the status quo. But this is explained in detail in the interview.

  • Interview
    Michael Köckritz
  • Photos
    Occhio

Mr Meise, how would you describe yourself?

I'm a madman, that's part of my job. My children gave me a picture for my 60th birthday that says: "Stay hungry, stay foolish". It's a familiar statement from Steve Jobs. But in the picture it's supplemented by "stay creative". And I wouldn't just say "stay hungry". For me, there is another drive: dissatisfaction. That sounds negative, but I think it's an important driver for me.

What exactly do you mean by that?

I'm never happy with the status quo. That's how I came up with the idea for Occhio. And I'm still convinced that there's always room for combining innovation with design to create something truly new. It has to give people something they haven't seen before and make their lives better. You have to be a bit crazy to realise this with such consistency.

"As a designer, you create things that people should enjoy. If you can't do that, you're not a good designer."
Axel Meise

You once said that Occhio's success lies in thinking differently to all other brands. Does this also have to do with dissatisfaction?

There is definitely also the issue of differentiation. What bores me to no end is doing things that already exist. You have to think completely differently. Here, too, you can quote Steve Jobs again with "Think different". You have to question the status quo, combine things differently, take a disruptive approach.

By no means are we saying that we are making what already exists a little better or different or more beautiful. When we launched the Mito luminaire series onto the market, ring-shaped luminaires were a dime a dozen. The differentiation we made was not to close the ring so that it looked like a piece of jewellery. That was the first step towards saying: "Think different".

What is the next step for you then?

The next thing I ask myself is what I expect from a luminaire and what gives people comfort and also a certain luxury. The answer is to control with gestures instead of getting up and looking for the dimmer. To be able to adjust the light and its colour completely freely, to be able to move from top to bottom in the room whenever you like.

It sounds like you're thinking more about technology than design

As a designer, you're usually concerned with the external form first. For me, you can't do that without also looking at the function and the people and trying to bring everything together. I want to create the possibility of interacting with light in a completely different way. We set up our own electronics department at Occhio. We now have four in-house designers, including myself, but 18 electronics engineers.

"Good design is when it sells. That sounds daft, but the customer is the ultimate sovereign at this point."
Axel Meise
1/3

Without electronics, all these functional ideas and fascinating possibilities for control, operation and connection to Smart Home or the Occhio Air app would not work. Light without control is only half the battle - or even less. I think that was our game changer in the industry. And because we thought differently at that point, we also positioned ourselves differently. And because we positioned ourselves differently, we can continue to think differently and develop things that didn't exist before. That's exactly what I enjoy.

You mentioned luxury earlier. What do you associate with it?

That's a very tricky question. In Germany, luxury is seen as overcrowded, superfluous and overpriced. In English culture, it's different, much more positive. Luxury is seen there as ( ... )


→ Read the full interview in rampstyle #30.

→ You can find inspiration, innovations and timelessly beautiful design in our digital design special for the Salone del Mobile 2026.

Michael Köckritz

Michael Köckritz

Editor in Chief
As a journalist, author, artist and media maker, Michael Köckritz succeeds time and again in creating both attention-grabbing and sustainably stimulating impulses in the context of contemporary and future topics as well as lifestyle and luxury worlds. As publisher and editor-in-chief, he has realised a whole series of book and lifestyle magazine formats that have regularly won numerous national and international awards over the years. The car culture magazine ramp, the men's lifestyle magazine rampstyle and the design magazine ramp.design are published internationally and are considered style-setting.
rampstyle #30 Blue Skies
Shining light: Axel Meise from Occhio

rampstyle #30 Blue Skies

Nach »All Summer Long« jetzt das Folgeheft »Blue Skies«. Schlüssig. Denn wenn man etwas mehr über den britischen Singer-Songwriter Chris Rea weiß, schließt sich damit ein schöner Kreis. »Blue Sky« ist eine von Reas Lieblingsmetaphern. Der blaue Himmel das Bild für einen hoffnungsvollen Blick auf das, was kommen wird.

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