"The best design objects and systems take risks-they interpret the world for people, giving them tools they can grasp in every sense." Lisa Krohn has been observing that mantra from the beginning when she won the Forma Finlandia in 1997 at age 23 with the Phonebook answering machine, whose "pages" could be turned to shift functions. Krohn works diligently to maintain tactility while utilizing the best of technology, and it's an approach that has found her an increasingly wide audience. Her work speaks to her fluidity in working in various genres and media: a 70-foot "animation slide" (called the Krohn-o-Scope) at the San Diego Children's Museum; a series of custom chandeliers for Nic's restaurant in Beverly Hills; the furniture for City Yoga, a yoga studio in Hollywood; and a line of furniture with an Australian company, Pongrass.

Krohn's previous projects include Krab Design Furniture, which has appeared in both San Francisco and New York's museums of modern art, and the lighting for Los Angeles' Nicola Restaurant, which was designed in collaboration with architect Michael Rotondi and designer April Greiman. The furniture for the retro-themed Encounter Restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport is another example of her work. Krohn has won a Fulbright fellowship to Milan, an NEA Design Arts grant, the Brooklyn Museum Young Designer's Award, and teaches in the Environmental Design Department at Art Center College of Design.