Architect, interior and product/industrial designer Matteo Thun: Matteo Thun & Partners (Milan)
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Matteo Thun needed something that functions like “a phone book” * to show the varied work for which he has become known over the course of his career. That work includes co-founding (with Ettore Sottsass) Memphis—the industrial design collective that defined Italian design in the 1970s and 1980s—and also the hotels, private residences, housewares, and lighting designed by his own firm, Matteo Thun & Partners.
Newest Posts and Book Lists
97 blog entries
May 21, 2013
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May 14, 2013
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Textile design firm executive Michael Maharam: Maharam (New York)
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As CEO of his family’s over 110-year-old textile firm, Michael Maharam has introduced the work of modern and contemporary graphic, fashion, and industrial designers to the company’s commercial fabric lines. Hella Jongerius, Maira Kalman, Abbott Miller, and Paul Smith, among many others, have all designed for Maharam, which has become known for the progressive design and engineering of its textiles for architects and interior designers.
Apr 23, 2013
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Architect Craig Dykers: Snøhetta (New York and Oslo)
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“What gets me up in the morning,” says architect Craig Dykers in the introduction to the list of 21 books he sent us, is “knowing . . . that the places where we live are not bound by catalogues of definitions—they are so much more.” Dykers is the co-founder of the New York and Oslo-based firm Snøhetta,
Apr 9, 2013
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Product/industrial designer Jens Martin Skibsted: KiBiSi and Biomega (Copenhagen)
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Jens Martin Skibsted designs ahead-of-the curve bicycles for Biomega, a company he founded, and electronics, household products, and furnishings for the top Scandinavian industrial design studio KiBiSi, another firm he founded—along with Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Lars Larsen (Kilo Design). He has been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for his design thinking and runs Skibsted Ideation, a design and branding agency.
Apr 2, 2013
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Design curator Aric Chen: M+ (Hong Kong)
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Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
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The recently appointed Curator of Design and Architecture at M+, the new museum for visual culture that will be a centerpiece of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, Aric Chen looks forward to developing a design and architecture permanent collection, including a library, for the museum.
Mar 26, 2013
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Product/industrial designer Carl Magnusson: CGM Design LLC (New York)
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Design, believes Carl Magnusson, “must evoke an experience physically and culturally beyond its core function.” The eminent industrial designer—the winner of Contract magazine’s 2012 Legend Award for lifetime achievement—was talking about the “central message that stuck” from Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, on his book list for Designers and Books, but he was really talking about all of design.
Mar 19, 2013
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Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund: Alfred A. Knopf Books, Pantheon Books, Vertical Press (New York)
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“How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books,” says Peter Mendelsund, the book designer who created 11 of the winning book covers for the “50 Books/50 Covers” competition of 2011 and whose covers for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy have been described by the Wall Street Journal as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.”
Mar 12, 2013
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Product and graphic designer Freeman Lau: Kan & Lau Design Consultants (Hong Kong)
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Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
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Internationally renowned product and graphic designer Freeman Lau (Lau Siu-Hong), with more than 300 awards to his name, has designed everything from posters and books to prize-winning water bottle packaging and a series of intertwining chairs and stools. He is also recognized for his work as an educator and curator, and in 2011 was a curator of the Beijing International Design Triennial. Lau’s book CMYK (2012) was just released in Hong Kong and Beijing this past December. Design China’s Zara Arshad, in an interview for Designers & Books, sat down with Freeman Lau recently to talk about reading, writing, designing, and publishing books in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Mar 5, 2013
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Product/Industrial designer David Weeks: David Weeks Studio (New York)
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Why do fiction and narrative hold such a great appeal for designers? One well-put answer comes from product designer David Weeks. “Whether it's a minor character in The World According to Garp who has halitosis and is described as ‘dying from the inside out‘ or Sartre’s description of finding his hand on a doorknob in Nausea, the fleeting imagery created from reading a well-written sentence is an act of design in itself.”
Feb 26, 2013
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Architect Jens Holm: HAO/Holm Architecture Office (Copenhagen and New York)
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“After thousands of years and the recent rise of a multitude of storytelling platforms, books remain for me the single medium that manages to both inform and inspire without dictating a single visual truth or idea,” Danish architect Jens Holm tells Designers & Books.
