The DesignAddict Shop: Books, magazines and DVD on modern and post-modern design, architecture and contemporary art

furniture

On/Off: New Electronic Products
by Mel Byars (Author) / Universe Publishing (Editor)

The speed at which technology is currently advancing has made the creation of electronic products one of the most prolific and fascinating areas of contemporary design. Product styling, too, is increasingly innovative, even fun; the "black box" is finally a thing of the past as manufacturers vie to make their products more appealing to style-conscious consumers.

This book brings together over one hundred examples of the latest, most sophisticated electronic devices, including domestic appliances, televisions, computers, telephones, cameras, sound equipment, timepieces, and the latest in wearable technology. The products are drawn from manufacturers and designers internationally and are described with full technical detail and clearly illustrated by color photography and annotated drawings. Products featured range from a robotic lawnmower to the thinnest wall-mounted television monitor; from a combined wristwatch and MP3 player, to a household internet device that allows comunication between kitchen appliances. As well as products already in mass production, a number of concept models are included, revealing designers' future visions for microwave ovens, communication devices, and even a humanoid robot.

On/Off provides a fascinating review of the cutting edge of contemporary product-design thinking for professional designers, students, and anyone intrigued by high-tech gadgetry and new technology.

furniture

1000 Chairs
by Charlotte Fiell (Author) / Peter Fiell (Author) / Simone Philippi (Author) / Benedikt Taschen Verlag (Editor)

Sleek, stuffed, buttoned, or bent, in the den or the dining room, the chair is an indicator of its owner's identity. Chairs make up much of the interior landscape of our homes and workplaces, and a comfortable chair is considered a great asset in either location. A rigorous survey of the last 150 years of chairs, 1000 Chairs is a pictorial guide to the axiom "you are where you sit." Writers Charlotte and Peter Fiell argue that, as well as being an icon of identity, the chair is a form through which designers engage in social, political, and even ergonomic rhetoric. A good example is George Nelson's mass-produced modular seating system. Geometrical in design, its austere, mostly rectilinear lines are efficient and economical. The book follows developments and mutations in chair design from the days before art deco through the rise of modernity and into the mid-'90s, when designers like Philippe Starck used such materials as recycled plastic and injection molded polypropylene.

In total there are more than the 1000 advertised illustrations, and each is accompanied by a small text describing the significance of the chair and its designer. The book includes more than 100 capsule biographies of such designers as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Adolph Loos, and Marcel Breuer. The only problem with 1000 Chairs is, ironically, its own ergonomics. At about eight by six inches and nearly 800 pages, it is an unwieldy little tome. That aside, this is a great book--a must for anyone interested in sitting down. --Loren E. Baldwin

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furniture

50 Chairs: Innovations in Design and Materials (Prodesign Series)
by Mel Byars (Author) / Thomas Tamburin (Illustrator) / Alexander Von Vegesack (Introduction) / Watson-Guptill Publications (Editor)

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furniture

American Contemporary Furniture
by Marisa Bartolucci (Author) / Cathy Lang Ho (Author) / Raul Cabra (Editor) / Dung Ngo (Editor) / Universe Publishing (Editor)

The most visually stimulating, cutting-edge presentation of contemporary furniture design in America ever published, this book presents in unprecedented graphic detail the work of the most promising American furniture designers of today and beyond. Here, as you view the extraordinary work of Portland, Maine's Angela Adams, New York City's Harry Allen and Karim Rashid, Minneapolis's Blu Dot Design, San Francisco's Jeff Covey-- and more than 70 others-- you'll discover why Americans have advanced to the forefront of the world's contemporary furniture design community. A sourcebook of great utility for the trade, it also serves as a tremendously informative guide for style-conscious consumers and students of design.