The two of them: Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy

DINOSAUR Designs co-founders, Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy, both 49, met at art school when they were 18. This is their story.

Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy

ARTISTS and co-founders of Dinosaur Designs, Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy, both 49, met at art school when they were 18.

STEPHEN SAYS:  In a new class, you know how you’ll casually sit there scanning everyone? Well, I took one look at Louise and thought, "I’ll like art."

It was as simple as that. We went to the art gallery that same afternoon and were standing in front of a particular painting and she said, "Oh, my father painted that.” That was a very big deal.

At the end of our second year at art school in ’84, Louise had broken up with her boyfriend. I was single and I missed her greatly during the Christmas holidays.

We knew each other so well before we became involved, we had so much love in our hearts for each other.
And when it happened, we were on cloud nine – and still are.

With the business, I’m a bit more nuts and bolts in terms of production and designing machinery, but everything else is 50/50.

The business was a very prosperous partnership with the three of us [they founded the business with Liane Rossler, who left the company in 2010] for many years.

But, like many business relationships, you tend to wear each other out over time. When the partnership stopped
being successful, it started to hinder the company and it became a liability to its ongoing success.

It put a lot of pressure on us. We worked hard trying to arrest the problems.

Louise instigated a lot of positive steps to fix it, but we reached a point where we realised we were out of steam and had to split [the partnership]. In the process, the company never missed a beat.

We’ve charted very difficult times since the financial crash in 2008.

There have been massive challenges and if we hadn’t sorted out our partnership issues before we hit the rocky road, who knows what could have happened? Emotionally, we’re in a much better place now.

I love Louise’s love of life, all things creative, art and food – you can learn so much from people who insist on the best, no matter what.

Being together comes naturally and that in itself is very lucky.

LOUISE SAYS:  When I first met Steve, I had this overwhelming sense of destiny.

You know when you meet someone and it’s like, I’ve seen you before but I don’t know how or where or when.

We were good buddies for the first two years and always used to pair up on projects – we naturally felt very comfortable working together.

We started Dinosaur Designs in our graduate year. Having parents [John Olsen and Valerie Strong] who are artists, I knew when you leave art school there aren’t many job opportunities.

I had to work something out or the alternative would have been washing dishes.

We have a lovely harmony together as work colleagues, as well as in our relationship. We’re very lucky, because not everyone can have that kind of intensity, but we somehow find our own spaces in working and living together.

Our studio is an extension of our life, but we have a certain lifestyle where we don’t feel like we’re coming to work.

I guess we work so successfully with each other because we have a lot of love – wonderful things come from love.

I love Steve’s enquiring mind and his sense of adventure, and he has such a beautiful eye.

We’re not married. It’s never really been important to us; we’ve had so many wonderful milestones together. We have a daughter Camille, 14, and we’re a little threesome. Our dachshund, Skipper, is our second baby.

I never had that dream of being a bride.

It’s not off the cards, but I feel like we’re an old married couple now. We’re on an adventure together – it’s really great to be with someone who’s saying "wow” at the same time as you.

Steve and I give each other a lot of creative space and freedom, in a sense. We have that capacity to have our disputes, but then really embrace it; it doesn’t take long until we’re having a big hug again.

We are both very determined people and don’t give up.

This article orginally appeared in Sunday Style magazine. Buy the Sunday Style app here