Phaidon Design Classics


Amazon.com: Phaidon Design Classics (3 Volume Set)

Phaidon PressI have to admit, this is a pretty sweet collection if you don’t count the random packaging. 1,000 pages of details on design. Everything from the classic scissor to Toblerone is in here. For the [Amazon] price, I suppose it’s not that bad. Maybe I’ll find a used copy on eBay in a few months.

From cars to furniture, from tableware to cameras, from everyday objects to airplanes, this breadth of design has never before been collected in such a way before. PHAIDON DESIGN CLASSICS tells the story of design’s evolution around the world from the late 1600’s to the present, bringing together patents, prototypes, old advertisements, original drawings, images showing the process of manufacturing, as well as rare archival photographs. The anthology features an astonishing 4,000 images.

The objects are presented chronologically, beginning with an elegant pair of Chinese bonsai scissors from the early 1600s, still in production today, and ending with Barber Osgerby’s Lunar bath accessories, destined to become a classic. Glancing through the volumes, the reader will gain an understanding not only of the history of design, but a history of taste and culture. The book is an extraordinary journey through the objects that have shaped our society, from the first attempts to combine function and beauty in the nineteenth century, through the machine aesthetics of the thirties, the advent of plastic and other new materials in the fifties and sixties, up to the classics-to-be of the last ten years.

The book includes not only objects created by internationally renowned designers, such as Breuer, Le Corbusier, Dreyfuss, Eames, Yanagi and Castiglioni, but also anonymously designed pieces, such as the clothes peg, the corkscrew and the chopstick, which, in spite of lacking a specific designer, have achieved such perfection in design and functionality that they have eliminated the possibility of improvement.

I’m all about looking for inspiration where I can find it. This collection really brings it together for you.


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