Roger Tallon was a French design pioneer who focused on design for industry, and whose practice focused on ergonomics, colour and lighting. He created a name for himself by designing new and innovative ways to construct both functional and aesthetically pleasing products. He is perhaps best known for the sleek silhouette of France’s high speed train, Train a Grand Vitesse. Having become known in the 1970’s for portable television designs (Téléavia P111) and the Mach 2000 wristwatch, he continued to progress as a master of his practice, designing everything from spiral staircases for the metro underground railway in Paris, to refrigerators. The field of transportation is perhaps where he has earned most of his prestige: in 1968 he designed the Mexico City Metro and in the early 1970s he collaborated with the French National Railways to design the Corail train, named by Tallon based on the idea for “comfort on rail.” At the pinnacle of his career he was appointed Director of design for the Eurostar trains. He passed away in 2011 and a major retrospective of his work ‘Roger Tallon: Design in Motion’ was held at The Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 2017.
In 1966, the Confédération des arts de la table asked Roger Tallon to create a series of modern cutlery. The designer, who always considered his work according to a global approach proposed a complete project including tableware, cutlery and glasses. The figure 3 of the name 3 T is an allusion to the 3 makers, while the letter T refers to Table, Tradition, Touch and tangentially the T of Tallon.