Book of the day: Safe – Design Takes On Risk
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Safety is an instinctive need that has guided human choices throughout history. Now more than ever, it has become not only a focus, but almost an obsession. Designers are trained to mediate between disruptive change and normalcy and can soothe people’s anxiety. When scientific revolutions happen, they translate them into objects that people can understand and use. Good design provides protection and security without sacrificing the need to innovate and invent. This book and the exhibition that it accompanies document the unique objects that designers have created to answer people’s needs, both physical and psychological. Physical objects include shelters for victims of disasters and homeless people, hideaway furniture, and personal armor and protective gear, while psychological objects include those that thwart identity theft, offer self-defense, and provide comforting reassurance. The objects presented here reflect how good design goes hand-in-hand with personal needs. This book includes an introductory essay by Paola Antonelli, Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York; an essay by Phil Patton on cars; another by Marie O’Mahony on materials and technologies; and a third by Cameron Sinclair on design for refugees and third-world facilities. The issues addressed by each of these authors will find resonance in people’s minds and souls. Edited and with Introduction by Paola Antonelli, Essays by Phil Patton, Marie O’Mahony and Cameron Sinclair.
Architectural Digest magazine issue March 2010
On a hillside overlooking Beverly Hills is a house that “vibrates with the love that created it,” says its owner, actress Jennifer Aniston.“I want to say this just right,” she muses. “I am so proud of this house. And I want to celebrate the people who made it: the master craftsmen who poured so much of themselves into its creation.” Not the least of these is designer Stephen Shadley, who worked with her on the project for nearly two and a half years. “I’ll be lucky if I ever do anything with this kind of team and freedom again,” raves the designer. “It was a project without a problem.” The designer has collaborated with Diane Keaton on two of her residences in Southern California and one in Arizona and with Woody Allen on the interiors of his apartment in New York City. He and Aniston had come close to working together on two other residences.
Via & more: Architectural Digest
Book of the day: The Fundamentals of Interior Design
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“The Fundamentals of Interior Design” takes the subject of interior design and explains the essential concepts in a logical and sensible way by looking at the process of design, from first contact with a client, to presentation of the finished design work and beyond. Throughout the text, guidelines are given to provide structure and the reader is encouraged to adapt and initiate methodologies to suit individual project needs. This approach is gives designers a belief in their own abilities, and confidence to tackle different projects with the unique challenges that each one brings.
Book of the day: Contemporary Lingerie Design
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The design of lingerie is often seen as a mystery, even by professionals working in other sectors of the fashion industry. This book aims to explain the processes at work and the many unexpected influences that shape the colour, silhouettes and decoration. The book will document the rise of the deluxe lingerie brand. This interest in luxury labels has led many young designers to chose lingerie as a creative outlet conscious of fashion, but also with a clear view of their own lingerie world. The book features the work of 30 lingerie designers from around the world, bringing out the individuality of each designer and providing a compelling insight into their working methods. Beautifully illustrated throughout, it presents inspirational images from the designers collections alongside their sketches and mood boards.
2G magazine issue #52 – Sauerbruch Hutton
Sauerbruch Hutton is a practice founded by Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton with its main offices in Berlin and London. Active as an independent concern for upwards of twenty years, they have developed a personal language that is essentially characterised by two evident features: the free, sinuous forms of some of their buildings and a bold, emphatic use of colour. Having said that, subtending these obvious characteristics are other no less important ones that are in some way derived from the first ones. We are referring to their wish to create a sense of place, whatever the situation, be it in an urban centre or in a rundown industrial area on the outskirts. Their buildings are gestures on an urban scale that resolve the programme of needs defined by the client and establish a dialogue with the location.
Via & more: 2G
Book of the day – Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Classroom in a Book
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This thorough, self-paced guide to Adobe Creative Suite 4 is ideal for users who want to learn the key features of Adobe’s stellar collection of professional design tools. Readers are first given a brief program overview of the Design Suite that highlights common features and includes a section on cross-media workflows. Then readers will get up to speed with each software application using step-by-step, project-based lessons, with the lessons in each chapter building upon the reader’s growing knowledge of the programs. Projects include designing a logo and creating basic assets, creating a brochure, prototyping a basic Website, creating interactive Flash and PDF documents, communicating through mobile devices, and submitting work for collaborative reviews. Review questions at the end of each chapter wrap up each lesson to help reinforce the skills learned in each chapter.
Book of the day: Thinking Objects – Contemporary Approaches to Product Design
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Thinking Objects: Contemporary Approaches to Product Design explores the many approaches designers take to their work, deconstructing the design process. How do objects “communicate” to us? This book reveals how designers can learn to read the signals an object sends, interpret meaning, and discover historical context, and use those messages in their own new product designs. Readers will learn to recognize current genres and approaches to design, and to understand the motivation of the pioneers who created iconic objects. Globalization, technology, the media, and the need for a sustainable future are all part of contemporary product design, and this innovative guide helps students and designers everywhere to incorporate these influences and more.
Book of the day: Good 50×70 – The Social Communication Project
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No one is better at conveying a message and getting people to act on it than those in the communications industry. But, sadly, the industry spends little time on issues that really matter. Work for charities is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills. The creators of the Good 50×70 project found this incredibly frustrating. They decided to create their own project to reward creativity in social communication and provide charities with a database of posters they could use for free in their campaigns. This book collects the best responses to seven design briefs from seven charities addressing seven critical global issues.
Domus magazine issue #933
What meets the eye when we gaze at a typical Arcadian landscape, of the kind represented in Flemish paintings, in Giorgione or Poussin? A natural expanse, interrupted by the presence of human artefacts extraneous to the biological fabric, but combined with its panorama.
They are the signs of a human presence, artificialia that write the map of naturalia. These anthropic elements incarnate the aesthetic vectors essential to the transformation of natural environment into landscape.
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Book of the day – The Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture
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“The Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture” provides an introduction to the key elements of this broad field. From climate change to sustainable communities, landscape architecture is at the forefront of today’s most crucial issues. It serves as a guide to the many specialisations complimentary to landscape architecture, such as landscape management and planning, and urban design. This book explains the process of designing for sites, including historical precedent, evolving philosophies, and how a project moves from concept to design to realisation.
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