Numen/ForUse is a Croatian-Austrian design collective working in the fields of scenography, industrial and spatial design and conceptual art. The group first formed in 1998. as a collaborative effort of industrial designers Sven Jonke, Christoph Katzler and Nikola Radeljković under the banner For Use. In 1999. they establish Numen as a collective identity covering all projects actualised outside the sphere of industrial design.
The group's early enterprises are characterized by experiments with impersonal design and radical formal reduction, deeply rooted in the tradition of high modernism and mainly applied to various synergetic total-design projects in Croatia.
From 2004. onwards, after setting up a large scale site-specific project for the production of “Inferno” in the National Centre for Drama in Madrid, Numen/ For Use become intensely involved with scenography. Further realisations in theatres across Europe ensue.
Since 2008. the collective turns its focus towards configuring objects and concepts without a predefined function, an activity resulting in the more hybrid and experimental works such as the Numen-Light series and Tape Installation. Parallel to these publicly exposed ventures, the group wins several international awards for their accomplishments in the field of industrial and set design.
