Jan Dranger studied interior architecture and furniture design at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm during the mid 1960’s. Here Dranger got an internship at the furniture company DUX in Trelleborg together with fellow students Janne Ahlin, Martin Eiserman and Johan Huldt. The students' assignment from the company was to create furniture for the young generation, and the four of them founded the group DUX4yra in 1967 with focus on designing modern furniture at a low price. The result from the DUX internship was the coach Multomanen, the collection Well, with pieces made of corrugated cardboard, and The Envelope, a coach made of fabric covered wooden panels delivered in a flat package.
In 1968 Dranger founded the design studio Innovator together with Johan Huldt, with the aim of making cheap and simple furniture for their own generation with focus on large scale production. Early on they had the vision of being the jeans (denim) of furniture design, which came to play a big part in their radical lifestyle marketing. One of Innovator’s first success (both national and international) was the lounge chair Kuddlådan (eng. the pillow box) for Swedish manufacturer Möbelmontage in 1969. Kuddlådan consisted of a black waxed cardboard stand with two pillows, one to sit on and one to be used as the backrest. During the same year the lounge chair 099 was released, a simple steel pipe construction that was covered by a stretch terry fabric, that could easly be removed and washed. The chair 099 was manufactured by the Swedish company EffKå.
In 1972 the armchair Stuns was launched at the Stockholm Furniture Fair and was later sold through KF. Stuns was made of a powder coated steel pipes construction with fabric in seat and back, and thick cushions in bright yellow, brown, black, green and orange. Two years later the lounge chair that could easily be turned into a sofa, Pool/Baluff was launched by IKEA, and later by KF.
In 1974 Innovator launched the Tech trolley, a simple steelpipe sidetable on wheels. The following year the British department store Habitat took on Innovator’s designs in their assortment. In the late 1970’s Innovator hade 27 products in Habitat’s assortment and in the beginning of the 1980’s their design made up 80 % of the products in Habitat’s boutiques in mainly Great Britain and France.
Innovator was also successful as interior architects, making the interior and boutique furnishings for Swedish companies and organisations such as Polarn & Pyret and RFSU - The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education in Stockholm. For the later Innovator also designed condoms.
Jan Dranger left the company in 1977 and continued to experiment with among other inflatable furniture and in 1997 the collection Soft Air was launched by IKEA and the Japanese design company Muji. In the 1980s Dranger collaborated with among other companies Swedish Design and Samhall. Jan Dranger died in 2016 at the age of 75.
