Melbourne Product Designer Kain Lucas first started a furniture design studio in 1999 in his hometown Mount Macedon, producing custom made solid timber pieces for local clients. Kain Studied Furniture Making with Victoria University and later went on to study Building Design with RMIT. During 2004 Kain lived and worked in London where he landed a job with fashion house Stella McCartney in her Mayfair press office and later worked for UK design guru Terence Conran in his flagship Conran Shop store in Chelsea.

Upon his return to Melbourne Kain started producing various furniture pieces which were included in numerous design exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, and in 2007 was short listed for the prestigious IDEA Awards with his Bottlebrick modular wine storage concept. Realising the increasing recognition of Australian design and the huge idealistic gap lying between designers and large manufacturers, Kain conceived the idea to create a manufacturing company specialising in the production of Australian designed home accessories and furnishings.

In the winter of 2007 Kain teamed up with long time friend and Marketing Manager Graham Smith, and started Ute Australian Design. Ute Australian Design offers what the pair describes as “highly refined utilitarian products” which are a result of the strong company philosophy to produce intelligently designed products that provide real solutions for real needs. The pair launched Ute Australian Design at the 2007 Melbourne Design Market, where they sold everything on their stand before the day was over.

The company hit the ground running with the success of the clever Bowlboard, which has received a huge response and is on sale through retailers nationally. Kain quickly followed up with a range of home accessories that have formed UteÂ's range to date, which includes the Universal Knife Block, Profile Bathmat and the popular Heisei table lamp. Kain has designed the entire Ute range and is also managing the production of the UteÂ's locally manufactured products.

www.ute.net.au