The A-Z of Design

Front Cover
Conran Octopus, 2010 - Art - 335 pages
Design is all around us, it is impossible to avoid. Everything that surrounds us has been designed - from the paperclip and the iPod, to our homes and the way we live. Design: Intelligence Made Visible forms the definitive statement on design for this century. Written by Stephen Bayley, one of the world's best known commentators on modern culture and Terence Conran, one of the world's leading designers and arbiters of taste, this new mini edition pays tribute to the leading names, movements, materials and processes such as furniture, fashion, cars, graphics, products, signs and symbols. The book combines essential facts with authoritative opinions - everything, as the industrial designer Raymond Loewy once said, from a lipstick to a steamship - but brought right up to date.A series of essays begin by introducing how design has its place in modern cultural history including Terence Conran's definition of design. The main section of the book comprises an A-Z of iconic people, products and processes from 20th century to the present day with biographies of leading designers from past and present, as well as corporate histories, product appraisals, and witty accounts of relevant management, cultural and social theories.This is simply the indispensable guide to the contents of the modern world in a pocket-sized format.

About the author (2010)

Stephen Bayley is one of the world's best known commentators on modern culture. In 1989 he was made a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France's top artistic honour, by the French Minister of Culture. Stephen Bayley has been a design consultant working on imaginative communications projects for Ford, Jaguar, Fiat, Audi and BMW amongst others, and wrote the creative strategy for Mercedes-Benz' advertisments. He has written extensively for Car magazine. Stephen was awarded PPA Columnist of the Year for his car column in GQ (which ran for about eight years) and he wrote very popular regular car columns for the Daily Telegraph and Management Today. He is also well-known as an outspoken commentator on art and design and has contributed to the Times, the Daily Mail, the Observer, the Evening Standard, the Guardian, the Spectator, the Los Angeles Times, High Life, New Statesman, the Independent, and the Independent on Sunday as well as many trade and professional publications. He founded the Habitat chain of stores in England. Starting in 1977, his U.S.-based Conran's stores helped launch the home furnishings retail boom. He is the author of thirteen books and was knighted in 1983 for his service to British industry and design. He lives in London, England.

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