Behance Interviews Our Creative Director

November 29, 2007

Behance, the online network for productive creative professionals, recently interviewed our creative director Hugo Eccles. The resulting article shines light onto not only Teroforma’s beliefs, but some of Hugo’s insights on design as well. Thanks Heather!

Read the full Behance interview here.

The Glass Master

November 27, 2007

It’s not everyday you meet someone whom others refer to, in all seriousness, as “the master.” It kind of makes you think of the Jedi Council or a Bruce Lee movie.

The nonchalance dissipates almost as fast as the time zones when the journey to meet a master glassblower involves flying from New York to Vienna to Zagreb, then driving through Croatia into Slovenia, past the vineyards and medieval churches until finally arriving in front of Rogaska Glassworks, where they’ve been making some of the world’s finest crystal for over 340 years. After all the globe-trotting, when you stand in front of Tihomir Tomic and he says “all I care about is the glass,” it all makes sense.

Tomic (pronounced tohm-eech) has been developing his craft for nearly 40 years, first as a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and then as an apprentice to Raoul Goldoni, one of the 20th century’s finest glass masters and the former Art Director at Rogaska. In 1969 Goldoni selected Tomic as his protégé, and over the next two decades, they worked together on an array of projects, many of which involved working in Murano with some of the world’s most renowned Italian art glass studios.

As the current Art Director at Rogaska, Tomic explains that most of what he knows wasn’t taught. “The technical, you learn in school. The things I learned with Goldoni made me understand that you must use your technique to bring out what is inside you. It is sometimes unfair, because your technique may be perfect but either there’s something inside or there isn’t. I am lucky.

In the small studio behind his house, containing a furnace that he built himself out of spare parts and discarded machines, he still experiments with new design ideas and new ways of working glass. It isn’t fancy, but there he is surrounded by the things that matter most- the pictures of his family above his drafting desk, a few sails, booms and surfboards stretched out across rafters in the ceiling and, of course, his glass.

Tomic’s work includes our champagne flutes, brandy glasses and martini set.