A quick word at the top…

 

Designalog is about design in its vast diversity.  Designalog is also about dialogue, about sharing and learning.  Please join us:  For a look, a comment, a contribution.  designalog@live.fr

Interiors & Furniture – Photos from IMM Cologne – Wallpaper Magazine’s Excellent Eye

As usual, the magazine Wallpaper, excellent in just about everything it undertakes, has once again shown us how fine an eye they bring to all things wonderful –  in this case, the IMM Cologne Interiors and Furnishings Fair.  Thoughful, sharp, clear and honest, their choice of products, the refreshing clarity of their photos and their brief, bling-free commentary are a perfect match for the inspired realism characteristic of IMM Cologne.  Click the link to be inspired yourself, by the products offered and the IMM Cologne fair, and by Wallpaper magazine.  And no, we don’t have any hidden money trails leading to either.

Wallpaper magazine’s look at IMM Cologne – click here

designalog@live.fr

Glow In The Dark: A Brief, Subjective Survey Of LEBFs

Tali Krakowsky, in an article entitled “Nocturnal Skins” appearing in the OnDesign section of Creativity (online), and inspired by viewing the work of the artist Dan Flavin,  takes a very quick, and purely subjective, stroll around the world and through time looking at LEBFs (which everyone knows stands for Light-Emitting Building Facades, right…) that apparently fall into one or other of two categories:  Glow or Pixel.  Whether you prefer to call them “media facades” as Krakowsky does, LEBFs (as we just made up), or just buildings that look nice at night, is certainly up to you.  We think Krakowsky’s short article is interesting, as are the LEBFs chosen, though we’re not sure we agree with Krakowsky’s rephrasing of Flavin’s comment:  It’s all about the effect and the story, not the technology.  We’re of the mind that the technology does matter, though that’s perhaps not the point of Krakowsky’s little survey.

Wikipedia entry for Dan Flavin, here.

designalog@live.fr

Graphic Design: Peter Miles – Simplicity, Sensibility, Idiosyncrasy

Alice Rawsthorn, yes, again, has written a very interesting article on the British (now living in NYC) graphic designer, Peter Miles, formerly of the fired-up design group Fuel, and his fascinatingly various and marvelously unified design efforts.  The article, entitled “Peter Miles Applies His Quirky, Simple Style to a Range of Platforms” (is that a good title, or just a bit too flatly informative?) in the Design section of The New York Times (online), is agreably informative reading whether you’re a graphic designer or, perhaps especially, if you’re not.  See what Celine, The Journal, Steidl, Marc Jacobs, Sofia Coppola and “New York City:  The Museum of Complaint” have in common, and, perhaps, learn something, too.

designalog@live.fr

Design Of The Decade: The Good News, And The Not So Good News

Alice Rawsthorn has written an article entitled “Trying to Be Responsible and Cutting-Edge, Too” in the Design/Arts section of The New York Times (online) reviewing (r)evolutions in design and design sensibility over the past decade, looking at product design, graphic design, “social” design, “design-art”,  and, of course, style, sustainability, technology and other more-than-relevant parameters in the consideration of any sort of design in the past decade and, given the successes (and failures), all the more so in the present and future.  Be at least marginally responsible, and perhaps even a wee bit cutting edge, and read the article.

designalog@live.fr

Speed & The Messiness Of Life, With Nostalgia: Robert Venturi’s and Denise Scott Brown’s 1968 Trip To Las Vegas

Nicolai Ouroussof has written an intelligently thoughtful article entitled “The Lessons of Las Vegas Still Hold Surprises” in the Design Review section of The New York Times (online) on the exhibition entitled “What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and the Work of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates” at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery through Feb. 5, which looks at the extensive research the architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown did in Las Vegas beginning in 1968.  Venturi’s and Scott Brown’s views are fascinating in themselves, and the exhibition offers yet another dimension, if not time-warp, and, honestly, shivers, just thinking how much things have changed since the architects’ 1968 observations.

designalog@live.fr

Marcel Wanders: Casa Son Vida – Something Old, Something New, Something…

For a wee bit of contrast with the content of our previous post, we can’t help but offer you the opportunity to take a look at Casa Son Vida by Marcel Wanders, as presented in Designboom.  Like it, love it, or…not, one certainly has the opportunity to reflect on the marvelous diversity of what, for lack of a better word, we’ll call design.

designalog@live.fr

French Art Deco Design – Masterful, Rich, Delicious

Roberta Smith has written an article entitled “Art Deco Furniture Designs That Jazzed Up an Age” in The New York Times (online) that, as is the case with most any and all of her articles, is well-written, and informative, and that you really should read.  Smith writes about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current show of French Art Deco “furnishings” as she says, ranging from the truly marvelous work of Jean Dunand, to the, frankly, truly marvelous work of Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, and including works by Jean Puiforcat, Henri Navarre, Claudius Linossier, Auguste Delaherche, Émile Decoeur, Clément Rousseau and others.

Read the article, view the slide show, and then go see the exhibit.  It’s as simple as that.

And, if you hurry, or you’re already in town, there’s another wonderful show of Ruhlmann’s work at Friedman Vallois gallery, 27 East 67th Street, Manhattan; (212) 517-3820; vallois.com through 5 January 2010.

designalog@live.fr

Decisive Design: Konstantin Grcic: ARTic Delight In Industrial Design

The Art Institute of Chicago is showing works by Konstantin Grcic in a show entitled “Decisive Design” through 24 January 2010.  As the ARTIC website puts it:

“ This significant exhibition is the first in America to explore the work produced by German designer Konstantin Grcic, one of the most important industrial designers working today. Grcic is known for his logical designs, driven by an honesty of materials and an appropriateness of production methods, yet injected with an inventiveness and originality that set his work apart. Although his production continues to be characterized by simple and distinctive design solutions, Grcic has more recently harnessed an interest in new technologies and materials research—a shift in practice that has afforded him a progressively ambitious portfolio of furniture and product designs that are transforming the landscape of contemporary design.”

Take the time to blow through the Windy City (don’t forget your scarf and ear-muffs) and see for yourself.

Konstantin Grcic in Wikipedia (There is no article for him in english!! Shame on all you english speakers interested in product and/or industrial design!  But you all speak french anyway, right.) 

And here is Grcic’s own site.

designalog@live.fr

Konstantin Grcic Curates A Serpentine Ode To Eloquent Industrial Design

Alice Rawsthorn has written an article entitled “Eloquent Ode to the Simple” in the Design/Arts section of The New York Times (online) discussing, in brief, the work of designer Konstantin Grcic and the motivations behind his choices for the new show at Serpentine Gallery (London) entitled “Design Real” which she calls his “paean to industrial design”.

Whether you’re a fan of Grcic’s work or otherwise, his highly informed curation of the Serpentine show is well worth your attention.  The show opens tomorrow (thursday 26 november).  The website accompanying the show, www.design-real.com, though currently quite static, once active promises to be quite excellent.

So, if you don’t happen to find yourself in London to see the show, you can at the very least curl up in your Chair_One and see what it’s all about.

designalog@live.fr

Nothing Is Invisible: Vase, Design Or Art?

Our sister blog, nothingisinvisible, has, with lightning-quick reflexes (or at least reflexes a bit faster than our own rock-quick reflexes) well, stolen, our would-be post on Helmrinderknecht Contemporary Design Gallery’s show (until 9 january 2010) entitled “Vase vs. Vases”.  All is fair in love and blogging apparently. 

See the would-have-been-our’s-if-only post here.

The RGB vase by Oscar Diaz is wonderful.  Though we believe that the sterling silver mop bucket vase (Tina Roeder, 2009) is much more nothingisinvisible-style.

Not really disgruntled, designalog@live.fr