When Robert Foster first started his own design company, he had a vague dream of creating something distinctive, something that would show the world that Australia wasn't ''just sheep and coal''.
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Twenty years later, his signature water jug has become a design icon, and is sold in high-end homeware stores and gallery shops all over the country.
His company, Fink & Co, this week is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the launch of a new lighting range, a limited edition version of the jug, and absolutely no plans to shift out of Canberra.
''When you run a business where you sell internationally as well as all around the country, it doesn't really make a hell of a difference, and I don't really like battling traffic jams every day,'' Foster said.
He moved from Bendigo in the 1980s to study at the ANU school of art, and became well-known for his gold and silversmithing, here and in Europe. He decided to try his hand at homewares in the early 1990s.
The celebrated jug, made of anodised aluminium and with a sloping spout, was initially a commission for a Canberra restaurant in 1993, and he has been producing it in large numbers in his Queanbeyan workshop ever since.
He and his small team, which includes his wife Gretel running the business side, also create various table vessels, jewellery and lighting.
He has supplied jugs for several high-end hotels and restaurants, as well as the Royal College of Art in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where the item has been a staple since 2000.
He has also done several large-scale commissions, including the curtain panels in Hotel Realm, and the lighting installation in the ACTEW building in Civic.
Despite the fact that the products sell in about 60 locations around Australia, all of the pieces are crafted and finished by hand.
Foster said he owed a huge debt to his local supporters, particularly in Canberra, which is his largest market after Melbourne.
As for achieving 20 years in the business, he said it came down to ''people believing in and supporting local designers, and supporting our brand … because it's very expensive exercise''.
''Canberra has changed a huge amount, and I think it's changed particularly in the last three years, becoming more gentrified, I think in a good way … When you get a certain number of people being able to support certain niche markets and certain cultures, that's when things start getting interesting.
''In some ways, I feel like what's happening at the present point in time is very similar to what happened in the '80s when I was a student, with interesting handmade things, boutiquey things, a resurgence in local culture, like there was back when I was a young fella.''
And he has every intention of continuing.
''I think I have to. I don't have a choice because we have a following, and there'd be outrage,'' he said.
