Tom Ahlström

Tom Ahlström is a Swedish industrial designer. He is the co-founder of A&E Design.

Biography

Ahlström and his identical twin brother, Stig, were born on May 30, 1943 in Helsinki, Finland, to a Swedish-speaking Finnish mother and a Swedish father who worked as a businessman in Finland's steel industry. He grew up in Västerås, Sweden, and moved to Stockholm in 1964. He studied crafts and silversmithing at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. While a student, he met Hans Ehrich, with whom he subsequently founded A&E Design in 1968. The pair designed products such as the 1230 for Jordan A/S, of which tens of millions of examples were sold; as well as the ticket dispenser and numeric split-flap display for the AB Turn-O-Matic M80 that "can be found in most supermarkets."

Designs by Ahlström and Erich are in museums such as the Möbeldesignmuseum, Nasjonalmuseet, Röhsska Museum, Nationalmuseum, the Vitra Design Museum and Pinakothek der Moderne in Germany, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In 2018, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm staged a retrospective of Ahlström and Ehrich's work. The exhibition included handmade models and prototypes, sketches, drawings, and finished products from the A&E Design archive, which the designers donated to the museum in 2015.