Growing Up with Giants
I don’t remember the first dinosaur I ever saw. I remember the feeling. It arrived through the films of Jurassic Park, and it stayed with me far longer than I expected. Every few years another film appeared, and every few years I watched it again. Without noticing, I grew up alongside them. The dinosaurs never changed. I did.
As a little girl, I only saw power. The Tyrannosaurus was terrifying. The Brachiosaurus felt impossibly tall. The Velociraptors were clever enough to frighten me long after the credits ended. To me, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Nothing seemed greater. Nothing seemed permanent.
Years passed. I became a designer. One day I realized something had quietly changed.
The same fossils that once inspired fear gradually became questions.
When I watched those same films again, I wasn’t looking at the dinosaurs anymore. I was thinking about time. How could a world once filled with giants disappear almost completely? How could creatures that dominated the planet leave behind only footprints, bones, and fragments of eggs?
Every fossil seemed less like an answer and more like another question. Perhaps that mystery is what has fascinated people for generations. We don’t simply admire dinosaurs. We wonder about them.
That realization changed the way I began designing. I wasn’t interested in recreating prehistoric animals. Museums already do that beautifully. Instead, I wanted to preserve the feeling they left behind. A long neck that makes someone smile. Rounded feet that make a heavy object feel gentle. A small vessel waiting patiently on a bedside table.
The dinosaurs slowly stopped becoming subjects. They became companions. Concrete turned out to be the perfect material. It carries weight. It carries silence. It carries memory. The irony never escaped me. Creatures that once walked across forests now return as quiet objects resting in someone’s home. Not to remind us of extinction — but to remind us that even enormous things can leave behind kindness.
Sometimes people ask why my dinosaurs have such gentle faces. Perhaps because I no longer see them as monsters. I see them as echoes.
One of my earliest dinosaur drawings. I didn’t know it then, but wonder has a surprisingly long memory.
They once ruled the Earth. Today they quietly hold a ring, a candle, or a small collection of everyday things. Power has become care. And somehow, that feels like a more meaningful kind of evolution.
Design begins long before the studio. Observation comes first.
From the Sketchbook
- A dinosaur should never feel aggressive inside a home.
- The bowl is not decoration. It gives the creature a new purpose.
- Curiosity is more beautiful than accuracy.
- Objects can preserve emotions just as fossils preserve time.
When I look at the DinoVerse collection today, I don’t simply see prehistoric animals. I see every version of myself who watched those films over the years. The child who was afraid. The student who became curious. The designer who learned that imagination grows older with us.
Perhaps that is what DinoVerse really is. Not a collection about dinosaurs. A collection about growing up without losing wonder.
“Wonder never disappears. It simply changes its shape.”