Ingo Maurer was born in 1932 in Germany and grew up in Reichenau by the Lake of Constance. After apprenticing as a typographer, he studied graphic design in Munich, Germany. In 1960, Ingo Maurer left Germany to move to the United States, where he freelanced as a graphic designer.

After three years in New York and San Francisco, he moved back to Germany in 1963 and founded Design M, a company specialising in developing and manufacturing lighting designs. The company later changed its name and is now known as Ingo Maurer Gmbh. Inspired by the Pop Art he encountered in the USA, he created the first of his many designs: . Bulb is an oversized, hand-blown lightbulb that was included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York just three years after its launch.

Ingo Maurer quickly became famous for his innovative and surprising design. His fascination with the naked lightbulb recurs in many of Ingo Maurer's designs. In 1992, he created one of his most famous works: the Lucellino collection, which includes winged glass lamps. See also his tribute to the inventor of the lightbulb, Thomas Edison, in the lamp: Wo Bist Du, Edison?. Since 1989, Ingo Maurer's designs have been presented in a variety of exhibitions. Maurer was invited to create installations of his well known YAYAHO lamp for the Lumieres je pense et vous exhibition shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Villa Medici in Rome and the Francais d´Architecture in Paris. The Vitra Design Museum organised a touring exhibition that took in both Europe and Japan. The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York presented Provoking Magic: Lightning of Ingo Maurer.

Ingo Maurer's innovative and creative approach to lamp design is unique. Today, more than 50 years after his first lamp, Ingo Maurer remains at the forefront of lighting design.