Product/industrial design

 

26 blog entries
Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 1, 2012

Jewelry designer Lisa Jenks: Lisa Jenks (New York)
Profile   Book List
The work of jewelry designer Lisa Jenks is prized for its originality, drama, and tactility. She is known especially for being finely attuned to the materials she works with, particularly sterling silver, in a way that allows physical characteristics to communicate cultural allusions. Her aesthetic influences range from angular forms in urban architecture to glyphs on the Mayan pyramids in Uxmal. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter September 25, 2012

Product designer Ronan Bouroullec: Atelier Bouroullec, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris)
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Partners for over a decade, Ronan Bouroullec together with his brother, Erwan, have created innovative designs for products ranging from furniture, lamps, tableware, and textiles to architectural projects, exhibition catalogues and, recently, an iPad application. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter August 23, 2011

Architecture and design curator Zoë Ryan: Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago)
book list
When Zoë Ryan—as of this July, the John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design and Chair of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago—gave us her list of books for product designers, she emphasized that she found it hard to be limited by disciplines or categories and that her view of design was an expansive one. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 22, 2012

Product designer Jasper Morrison: Jasper Morrison Ltd. (London)
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For British product designer Jasper Morrison design is a tool that should be used to improve the quality of “atmosphere.” He ruminates on this idea of atmosphere in his book Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary (co-authored with Naoto Fukasawa)—“a manifesto calling for an appreciation of the well-designed objects we use every day that often go overlooked or get taken for granted” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 9, 2013

Product/industrial designer Jens Martin Skibsted: KiBiSi and Biomega (Copenhagen)
Profile     Book List
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. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 30, 2013

Jewelry and watch design editor Marion Fasel: InStyle (New York)
Profile     Book List
“To be a jewelry designer is a calling,” says Marion Fasel, InStyle’s jewelry editor since 1996, the year she launched the magazine’s award-winning coverage of the field. “You have to actively seek an education,” Fasel continues, “and books are one of the best resources.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 13, 2012

Product/industrial designer Stefano Giovanni: Giovannoni Design (Milan)
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On industrial designer Stefano Giovannoni’s book list for Designers & Books are five titles by the French philosopher and sociologist Jean Baudrillard. Why? Giovannoni thinks it’s very important for a designer “to open one’s vision to the philosophical and sociological aspects related to the evolution of our society.” “I’ve never found a design book deep enough for a broad vision of our profession,” he says in the introduction to his book list. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 8, 2013

Product/industrial designer Jeffrey Bernett: CDS/Consultants for Design Strategy (New York)
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“School only teaches you so much,” says Jeffrey Bernett in his book list introduction for Designers & Books. The designer of acclaimed residential and office furniture, household products, lighting, packaging, and interior architecture for companies such as B&B Italia, Design Within Reach, and Herman Miller recommends reading broadly as not only “a quest to gain knowledge” but also “a thought-provoking journey in its own right.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter July 12, 2011

Product design executive Alberto Alessi: Alessi S.p.A. (Crusinallo, Italy)
book list
Alberto Alessi belongs to the third generation of one of the world’s great family dynasties in design. For over 40 years he has been at the center of managing the business and strategic affairs of Alessi S.p.A.—known for bringing innovative design to housewares—as well as coordinating the company’s product development relationships with notable architects and designers from around the world.  He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and about his life, which has had design at its center.  More...

Guest posts
By Katarina V. Posch November 20, 2012

Design scholar Katarina V. Posch (New York)
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Product/industrial designer Eva Zeisel (New York)
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For this guest post, the daughter of the late Eva Zeisel, Jean Richards, asked design scholar and family friend Katarina V. Posch to write an appreciation of Zeisel, on the occasion of the release of the e-book Eva Zeisel: A Soviet Prison Memoir (2012). Compiled by Richards and Brent C. Brolin, the book presents details of the life of the remarkable designer, from whom Designers & Books had the pleasure of receiving a book list (a single book) in 2011. — SK More...