Hidden Forms: Seeing and Understanding Things

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Franco Clivio

Photographs Hans Hansen

Birkhäuser, Berlin, 1994, English; originally published in German

Nonfiction, Graphic Design; Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design

ISBN: 9783764389666

Suggested Retail Price: $52.00

From the Publisher. A lesson in seeing that is intended not only for designers, the book Hidden Forms uses examples from Franco Clivio’s collection of objects to reveal clearly and yet poetically the hidden qualities that require a practiced gaze. Working with ordinary, everyday, practical, seemingly design(er)less objects has been Franco Clivio’s obsession both as a university lecturer and as a practicing designer. Each object in the collection stands for an unconventional, unconstrained, and sometimes unique solution to a problem that is often simple but always fundamental; fundamental in the sense of a design that places less emphasis on good form than on perfect function. A fruitful collaboration between Franco Clivio, the photographer Hans Hansen, and the graphic designer Pierre Mendell has produced a work that uses photographs, drawings, and texts to reveal the hidden qualities of objects for everyday use.

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Fritz Frenkler

On Fritz Frenkler’s Book List

How a designer is inspired by other products. What a major designer is able to collect. What a photographer (Hans Hansen) and a graphic designer (Pierre Mendell) are able to make. (Note: graphic designer Pierre Mendell suffered from a serious illness.)

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