Jonathan Olivares
Jonathan Olivares was born in Boston in 1981, and graduated from Pratt Institute’s industrial design program in 2004 after having studied design and management at the New School University. In 2006, he established Jonathan Olivares Design Research (JODR), an office dedicated to industrial design, design-related research, and exhibition design. The combination of these activities gives the office a multilateral approach toward each project.
Olivares has designed furniture for Knoll, Danese Milano, and Driade, all leaders in the furniture field. In her article on Olivares for Kaleidoscope, a quarterly publication on contemporary art and culture, Leah Whitman-Salkin wrote: “Aesthetically, his works seldom resort to fanfare, privileging use-value and tenderness over showmanship. Olivares produces objects that ask to be used rather than observed. His slow-and-steady style, combined with his personal resolve, produces humble results worth looking out for.” In 2011, Smith, JODR’s first product for Danese Milano, won the Compasso d’Oro, Italy’s most prestigious design award given to products. In 2012, the Olivares Aluminum Chair, an outdoor aluminum stacking chair, was launched by Knoll.
In the field of research Olivares works with a di
verse group of clients, with a wide variety of objectives. Research projects have included a survey of the American furniture industry for Domus magazine, an installation explaining mobile devices for the 2010 St. Étienne Design Biennial, and a four-year investigation of office chairs for Knoll Inc., which culminated in the book A Taxonomy of Office Chairs (Phaidon Press, 2011). Olivares has been the recipient of two grants from the Graham Foundation, in 2010 and 2011, for the Outdoor Office, a research project focused on creating outdoor work environments for academic and business contexts.
Olivares has designed exhibitions for The Art Institute of Chicago and the EXD Design Biennial in Lisbon, and in 2012 designed a social hub and library for the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco.
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
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