Melbourne’s Kate Stokes created one of Matilda’s most popular designs at the 2011 London Design Festival with ‘Coco Pendant’ a handmade light inspired by a Japanese spinning top. Made from Victorian Ash timber and spun aluminum, it was the first product released for the 29-year-old fledgling designer.

“You never know what’s going to happen when you go out there,” says Stokes, “but I’ve found the Australian design industry to be encouraging and supportive, and I’ve had a grant from the Australia Council which has definitely helped.”

What also helped was her light receiving immediate acclaim; it was covered by the international design blogs and local and international design magazines, including Vogue Living and Monocle, and named Home Beautiful Product of the Year in the lighting category. It was also exhibited at Melbourne’s 2010 Fringe Furniture Festival, where it picked up awards including best lighting design, best market ready design and best design for commercial application.

The ‘Coco Pendant’ success story continued when it was also catalogued by designer furniture, lighting and accessories retailers such as Corporate Culture, where it sells for $1500, with over 300 sold since their release a year ago. Made in Victoria, capacity will soon be extended with Matilda’s Jenni Carbins producing them in the UK to sell across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The grant from the Australia Council was the 2009 Art Start grant, which gives $10,000 for emerging designers to put towards setting up a sustainable practice. Her design studio Coco Flip opened in Collingwood in 2010 and Stokes will work across furniture, interior and graphic design. Her philosophy is based on the Swedish word, ‘lagom’, which roughly translates as ‘not too much, and not too little’.

As well as exhibiting at Matilda, recent highlights for Stokes include winning the Australia Council’s New Work Grant, which will fund the creation of new work. She also did a six-week internship in New York at Rich Brilliant Willing (USA). Founded in 2007, the renowned design studio consults for an international clientele as well as producing a self-branded collection of furniture and lighting.

“It was just really affirming to spend some time in a studio that is as well respected as Rich Brilliant Willing and to feel that the way they were running their business wasn’t too dissimilar to the way that I am here in Melbourne,” said Stokes. “The more I expose myself to people like that who are doing fabulous things the more I realise that the design community internationally isn’t as big and as scary as it may seem. It’s really important to travel and see what’s happening in other parts of the world.”

Stokes has long been a traveller. At 17, after finishing high school in Perth she moved to Italy to work as a nanny. She was meant to be away for a year, but went to live in Ireland and travelled extensively throughout Europe.

On her return to Australia she enrolled in an architecture degree, but after a year went to Canada to live. On her return she switched to industrial design, graduating in 2006 from Perth’s Curtin University of Technology. In 2008 she moved to Melbourne to be closer to Australia’s design hub and worked in a broad range of jobs, including the design manager of Little Creatures Brewery and communications co-coordinator for the State of Design Festival, before setting up her studio.

“I was originally drawn to architecture, because I have a real love of art and the creative path is something I wanted to pursue,” she says. “I really loved physics and mathematics in school and wanted to find a way to combine the rationale side of the brain with the creative and one thing led to another and that’s the path I have followed.”

She is about to start renovating an apartment in Fitzroy, which she recently bought with her partner, who is an architect. She has also released her second product, ‘Mr Cooper’, a copper pendant light that was inspired by the old tin can telephones Stokes used to play with as a kid. It was released at the recent Fringe Furniture Festival in Melbourne.

“I wanted ‘Mr Cooper’ to have a lot of personality; it’s quite a masculine light, the lines are quite hard and I envisioned it would be in a gentlemanly bar with whiskey and cigars. Giving it a name is really just adding a bit of personality to the product.”

For now, Stokes is manufacturing all the products herself, but is finding that the manufacturing side can take over from the design side. Consequently, she is hoping that within five years she can grow the collection and license the products to larger international companies.

She also hopes to exhibit at some of the international design fairs like Tokyo Design, but admits that it can be expensive to be continuously showing at fairs. For now, she’s happy to remain in Melbourne and focus on building her business, but has an ongoing dream to spend some time working in Copenhagen.

“It’s a combination of releasing products with exhibitions but also good marketing and getting the products in the right hands,” she says.

Although she finds a lot of freedom in designing for lighting in that it can be a feature of a room, there are plenty of forms she’d still like to explore.

“A few people have referred to me as a lighting designer and I don’t think of myself as only lighting. There’s more to come,” says Stokes. “I’m looking into designing an Ottoman range, I’d like to work with rug manufacturers and bring in the graphic design element and move onto lounges, coffee tables and other designs.”

Before she knows it, Stokes will have a full house.