Jasper Morrison studied design at the Kingston Polytechnic in London from 1979 to -82 and continued with a postgraduate degree at the Royal College of Art in the same city until 1985. In 1984 Morrison received a scholarship, which allowed him to study for one year at Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste.
Morrison founded his own design studio in London 1986 from where he works with clients including Vitra, Flos, Magis, Rosenthal, Sony, Muji, Samsung and Andreu World. In 2002 a branch office of Morrison’s studio opened in Paris, and five years later in Tokyo. Morrisons big breakthrough came in 1988 when he showed the Thinking man’s chair at the at furniture fair in Milan. The chair, made by Cappellini, of tubular and strip steel without any upholstery, and where all the elements of the chair are functional contributions the ensured comfort and prolonged periods of relaxation and pondering.
In 1987 Morrison designed the installation for Reuters News Centre at the Documenta 8 exhibition in Kassel, and in the following year he showed the Some New Items for Home Part I exhibition at the DAAD Gallery in Berlin. The exhibition was the result of a three months residency in the city, called the Designwerkstatt, and one of the pieces Morrison designed there was the seemingly simple Plywood chair later launched by Vitra.
In 1989, Morrison began collaboration with Vitra with the exhibition Some New Items for the Home, Part II, at Milan's Furniture Fair. Together with Andreas Brandolini and Axel Kufus, Morrison founded the company Utilism International, that provided exhibition design and town planning services. From 1994 – 97, Morrison worked as a consultant for Hannover transport authority, for whom he a.o. designed a tram and in 1998 he was appointed to select all public furniture for the original Tate Modern.
In 2000 Morrison designed the Air-chair for Magis, a plastic chair made for outdoor use in bright colors and that was followed by the Trattoria chair made of a wooden construction with seat and back in plastic (2009). In 2006 Morrison collaborated with Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa on the exhibition Super Normal at Axis Gallery, Tokyo. The exhibition later toured to London, Milan, Helsinki and New York and was followed by a book. Super Normal inspired the opening of the Jasper Morrison Shop in London 2008. The Shop presents an exhibition each year during London Design Festival.
In 2014 Morrison designed the furniture for the Tate Modern extension Switch House, and the following year the retrospective exhibition Jasper Morrison: Thingness opened at the Centre d’innovation et de design au Grand-Hornu in Hornu, Belgium. Thingness was later shown at the Tate Modern Switch House.
Jasper Morrison was appointed Designer des Jahres by Architektur & Wohnen in 2017. He has been a Royal Designer for Industry since 2001. He has been exhibited at a.o. the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Bordeaux (2009) and curated the Danish Design, I Like it exhibition at the Copenhagen Design Museum in 2011. Morrison is represented at a.o. the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the M+ Museum in Hong Kong and the Museum of Furniture Studies in Stockholm
