Dr Christopher Dresser is best remembered for his pioneering advances in design and associated technology. In the new industrial world of the nineteenth century, Dresser was the first designer to understand that machinery was a good servant but a poor master; he made it his business to understand how machines worked. His success gained him credibility. Dresser became a sought-after consultant to several textile manufacturers, most notably Barlow & Jones, Tootal, Warner & Sons, Turnbull & Stockdale, and Wardle, which allowed him to establish the largest design practice in Britain by 1870. Equally, it was his success in promoting textiles at affordable prices that attracted his popular following in the press. Unlike his contemporaries, he was interested in making designs available to everyone. However, Dresser is less celebrated in comparison to other designers of the era, such as William Morris, because Dresser was obliged to abandon this campaign to improve British taste due to an unexplained illness in the early 1880s. At the same time, Morris was expanding his business just as the Arts and Crafts movement was beginning to gain momentum. Despite being the first Victorian to address the decorative needs of all the population, there is a severe lack of appreciation for Dresser's work - whose influence can be found in many textiles that we take for granted today. This book redresses that balance, giving Dresser the monograph he deserves.

In Chanel: An Intimate Life, acclaimed biographer Lisa Chaney tells the controversial story of the fashion icon who starred in her tumultuous era Coco Chanel was many things to many people. Raised in emotional and financial poverty, she became one of the defining figures of the twentieth century. She was mistress to aristocrats, artists and spies. She broke rules of style and decorum, seducing both men and women, yet in her work expected the highest standards. She took a 'plaything' and turned it into a global industry which defined the modern woman. Filled with new insights and thrilling discoveries, Lisa Chaney's Chanel provides the most defining and provocative portrait yet. 'Chaney's research is laudable, uncovering fresh details of Chanel's well-trodden rag trade to riches story' Evening Standard 'An unflinching examination of the historically inscrutable designer' Vogue Lisa Chaney has lectured and tutored in the history of art and literature, made TV and radio broadcasts on the history of culture, and reviewed and written for journals and newspapers, including The SundayTimes, the Spectator and the Guardian. She is the author of two previous biographies: Elizabeth David and Hide-and-Seek With Angels: The Life of J.M. Barrie.

Joe Colombo (Milan, 1930-1971) was one of the greatest designers of the last century, visionary and ingenious, capable of giving shape to ideas that retain a striking relevance to this day. Trained first at the Brera Academy and then at the Polytechnic of Milan, Joe Colombo has expressed, in just 20 years of work, an absolutely innovative world view, placing man and his life at the centre of reflection, imagined a dynamic and transformable habitat both on a domestic and urban scale. A design in the round, aimed at satisfying every need - also thanks to technology and new materials - and to shape the space and its objects according to the different activities of the moment, be they working or social interactions. From here, the modular and dynamic furnishing accessories with futuristic lines, among which some pieces that have become iconic of Italian design stand out such as the Tube Chair, the Spider lamp (Compasso d'Oro 1967) or the Boby trolley (now at the MoMA in New York), the "monoblocks", such as the Mini-Kitchen or the Total Table with integrated dishes, up to the global housing unit, a visionary "machine", which encompasses all the needs of living. This volume constitutes the first catalogue raisonne of his work, of which about 180 projects are documented, divided between works still in production and historical works; introduced by the essays by Ignazia Favata - his historical collaborator - and Domitilla Dardi, it is completed by a critical anthology. Text in English and Italian.

Designer and interior decorator Dorothy Draper’s colour-filled life story is one of high society, money, gossip, and throughout it all, reinvention. Carleton Varney has owned and directed Dorothy Draper & Company, Inc., for almost 60 years. He worked with Mrs. Draper at the end of her illustrious career, and wrote the only biography of her life, The Draper Touch: The High Life and High Style of Dorothy Draper, in 1988. In the book, Varney sets the scene and defines the milieu that Draper was born into in 1889 and from which she escaped to become one of America’s leaders in design — a true visionary entrepreneur. Thirty-three years later, Shannongrove Press is releasing this deluxe edition of The Draper Touch. With a new foreword by Varney, newly found photographs, recently discovered historical documents from a private collection, and archival ephemera from Draper’s family, this beautiful tome reveals Draper’s fascinating journey and the real stories behind her ground-breaking work.

Fifty-six international designers and architects celebrate the Hogan label's most recent collections. There is an obvious connection between the different forms of creative expression: this is the core philosophy Hogan, expressed in the Future Roots project in which 56 internationally famous designers and architects are captured in Ornella Sancassani's photographs wearing the most recent collections designed by the fashion label. The black-and-white photographs interpret the fashion house's savoir-faire; the architects and designers are captured in their professional workplaces or with those objects that in a concise way best express their Weltanschauung. Future Roots is therefore a story in pictures in which the different aspects of planning in design, architecture, fashion and photography are brought to the fore, showing little distinction between sectors.

In 1946, Abram Games left the War Office armed with this testimonial: 'His work had to be subtly persuasive, or directly "propagandist" - but it was always effective, compelling, and of outstanding quality.' During the Second World War, Captain Games, holder of the unique title of 'Official War Poster Artist', designed a hundred posters for army use. The Ministry of Information adapted several designs for civilians. There is a tale to tell about many of these images, especially about his infamous but most successful ATS Blonde Bombshell recruiting poster. Being the son of a photographer, Games employed many ingenious photographic tricks to convey his message of 'Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means' in his designs. Most books on Graphic Design have included images by Abram Games. This is the only book published that concentrates solely on Games's war work. The Estate of Abram Games holds his large archive, which includes a memo from Churchill, personal correspondence, press cuttings, sketches, paintings, and maps for the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, and photographs from Games's seven years in army service.

This volume presents for the first time in English a curated selection of writings by the design thinker Gui Bonsiepe from the 1960s to the present day. Addressing as it does questions of non-Western design and a design practice that is both radical and democratic, Bonsiepe's work has assumed new importance for current debates inspired by global political and environmental crises. Structured into three sections, the anthology first addresses Bonsiepe's work on design theory and practice, particularly in relation to the history and contemporary relevance of the Ulm design school, where Bonsiepe was a professor in the 1960s. A second section then represents Bonsiepe's writings after his move to South America in the 1960s and '70s, where he worked as a design consultant for the Allende government in Chile before the military takeover. In writings from the period, Bonsiepe explores the concept of design 'at the periphery' and the relationship of national design traditions and practices in Latin American countries to those of 'the core' - Western European and American design. The final section comprises selections of Bonsiepe's writings on design in relation to literacy and language, visuality and cognition. This indispensable volume includes new interviews with Bonsiepe as well as his original, previously unpublished texts.

Barbel Thoelke's life's work in filigree porcelain. A finely-balanced book that includes both traditional manufacturers and one-offs. The life's work of the Berlin-born porcelain designer Barbel Thoelke unites the strictest design discipline with creative imaginings to make a superb, coherent and, in her own way, unique oeuvre in contemporary German studio porcelain. Thoelke's output is characterised by a consistent concentration on the vessel and encompasses not only studio series but also one-off vessels. At the same time, she works with such traditional manufacturers as KPM, the State Porcelain Manufactory Meissen, the Schwarzburger Werkstatten fur Porzellankunst and the Viennese porcelain manufacturer Augarten. Her mantra: ' to realise my very personal ideas of an object that one would like to live with every day, and which is perhaps only troubling when it is not there'. Text in German.

Sutnar's brilliant structural systems for clarifying otherwise dense industrial data placed him in the pantheon of Modernist pioneers and made him one of the visionaries of what is today called "information design." Visual Design in Action is a snapshot of Sutnar's American period (1939-1976), and includes graphics for Carr's Department Store, advertisements for the Vera Neumann Company, identity for Addo-X, and other stunningly contemporary works. He is best known for his total design concept for the Sweets Catalog Service and lesser known for introducing the parenthesis as a way to typographically distinguish the area code from the rest of a phone number. Visual Design in Action is a testament to the historical relevance of Modernism and the philosophical resonance of Sutnar's focus on the functional beauty of total clarity. This reprint of Visual Design in Action (originally published in limited quantities in 1961) is as spot-on about the power of design and "design thinking" as it ever was.

A stunningly presented portfolio containing a sumptuous selection of the most spectacular full-colour splash pages from Brecht Evens' illustration, commercial and graphic novel oeuvre. Not bound, beautifully printed on a perfectly frameable format (30cm x 40cm).

This volume is an unprecedented history of Louis Vuitton's women's bags, the most coveted line of accessories in women's fashion. At the heart of Louis Vuitton are its City Bags, a range of women's bags that dates back to the turn of the twentieth century. Featuring the trademark monograms of the house, the City Bag story began with the Steamer, a resort bag designed in 1901 to be packed inside a much larger steamer trunk. These bags have in a hundred years formally diversified into a dizzying array of handbags for every conceivable function demanded by the modern woman. Profoundly influential, City Bags are now known to millions by their descriptive names (Keepall, Bucket, Papillon, Alma, Locket, Noe, Speedy) and are still evolving into more fantastical forms. Lavishly illustrated with new and archival photography, historical graphics, landmark editorials, and ad campaigns, the volume traces the history of these specific bag families, and examines the earliest specimens and today's most sought-after collectibles, including Vuitton's collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince, Yayoi Kusama, and Rei Kawakubo and one-off projects by Zaha Hadid, Shigeru Ban, Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, Andree Putman, and of course, Marc Jacobs. Louis Vuitton: City Bags is an ambitious volume on the creation and cultivation of a cultural phenomenon.

Designers often tend to deny the influence of changing tastes on their work. William Morris’s “joy in labour,” or the Bauhaus principle of “truth to materials,” are well- known principles of this kind; Charles Eames once advised, “innovate as a last resort – more horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other.” But of course, Charles and Ray Eames are celebrated as among the greatest design innovators of all time, and Arts and Crafts and Bauhaus knockoffs can be found in any home furnishings store.

In practice, modern design has been constantly subsumed within the imperative toward the new, on the assumption that the market will quickly burn through even the best ideas. The question is how to achieve objects of inherent value against this backdrop – to accept the fact that design operates (for all practical purposes) oriented to an insatiable market, yet one that can, on occasion, produce ideas of transcendent grace. Here is where Fredrikson Stallard come in. Look at any of their work, and you will immediately notice a certain quality of speed. At their best, Fredrikson Stallard’s objects are brilliant in just the same way that a great pop song is. There’s depth of feeling and thinking, but also a killer hook.

Fredrikson Stallard make no claims on the modernist high ground, in which objects are conceived as optimal, efficient solutions, end points of rigorous analysis. They are intuitive makers, and happy to accept the conditions of constant flux – that they are only as relevant as their last idea. They see that the values of their discipline are contingent, not timeless.

"Meeting Matteo, over 10 years ago in Hoxton Square has led me to develop a genuine respect and curiosity about his work and approach. I was excited and apprehensive when I decided to write his story. Such a responsibility. This book is not simply about Matteo's transformation from Marketing to the world of Interior Design over the past decade, but more about what inspires and drives someone and how they get through it. "From nothing, Matteo has created a design studio with a reputation for elegance, quality and quirkiness. I feel lucky to have been allowed such unlimited access, which has brought me closer to Matteo. I hope what I have discovered keeps you turning the pages, as I know that there is a lot more to come. Have a look for yourself." Matteo Bianchi is an award-winning Interior and Product Designer with an entrepreneurial flair. Born in Venice, Italy, Bianchi's inherent passion for design led him to train at the Chelsea College of Art & Design in London, after a career in marketing and advertising. Matteo Bianchi is the Founder and Director of Matteo Bianchi Studio, launched in 2007 and he also teaches Interior Design related courses at The Interior Design School, London and Chelsea College of Art in the United Kingdom and The United Arab Emirates. Matteo Bianchi's Studio combines unexpected, unique and refined Interior and Product Design.

The Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger decisively influenced the international creation of typefaces after 1950. His Univers typeface and the machine-readable font OCR-B are milestones, as is his type for the Paris airports, which evolved into the Frutiger typeface. All set new standards for signage types. In all, he created some fifty types, including Ondine, Meridien, Avenir, and Vectora. Based on conversations with Frutiger himself and on extensive research, this publication provides a highly detailed and accurate account of the type designer's artistic development. All of his types - from the design phase to the marketing stage - are illustrated and analyzed with reference to the technology and related types. Hitherto unpublished types that were never realized and more than one hundred logos complete the picture.

Iconic graphic designer and Academy Award--winning filmmaker Saul Bass (1920--1996) defined an innovative era in cinema. His title sequences for films such as Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959), and Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch (1955) introduced the idea that opening credits could tell a story, setting the mood for the movie to follow. Bass's stylistic influence can be seen in popular Hollywood franchises from the Pink Panther to James Bond, as well as in more contemporary works such as Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) and television's Mad Men.

The first book to examine the life and work of this fascinating figure, Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design explores the designer's revolutionary career and his lasting impact on the entertainment and advertising industries. Jan-Christopher Horak traces Bass from his humble beginnings as a self-taught artist to his professional peak, when auteur directors like Stanley Kubrick, Robert Aldrich, and Martin Scorsese sought him as a collaborator. He also discusses how Bass incorporated aesthetic concepts borrowed from modern art in his work, presenting them in a new way that made them easily recognizable to the public.

This long-overdue book sheds light on the creative process of the undisputed master of film title design -- a man whose multidimensional talents and unique ability to blend high art and commercial imperatives profoundly influenced generations of filmmakers, designers, and advertisers.

An artist’s record of the homes of 89 leading creatives from interior designers to ceramicists, antiques dealers, florists and chefs. SJ Axelby brings new life to interior portraiture, capturing in paint the favourite rooms of 89 leading creatives from interior designers to ceramicists and antiques dealers (and florists and chefs). A sumptuously illustrated record of a home or special project, each interior portrait is accompanied by a charming and quirky interview with the owner, in which we discover invaluable nuggets of design advice, cocktail choice, life hacks and so much more – all illustrated in watercolour by SJ. There is a long tradition of painting rooms to provide a record of grand homes, giving a glimpse into the life and times of previous generations. Today there is a resurgence of interest in our living spaces, but there is no book in the tradition of illustrated room portraiture to inspire you. SJ Axelby's Interior Portraits will take you into multiple unique and colourful homes, seen through the artist’s eye. Creating an authentic and characterful scheme is much like the composition of a painting: the shape, form, contrast, colour, pattern and texture all need to work in harmony. This pictorial guide includes not only Sarah-Jane’s original watercolours but scrapbook pages annotated with design wisdom from each room’s owners, which will enthuse and empower the reader to try new ideas in their own homes. It’s a creative who’s who of the international design world featuring mouth-watering compositions bursting with colour and pattern and displaying the true joy of a home that reflects its owner’s personality. With a foreword by Kit Kemp of Firmdale Hotels. Just a few of the creatives featured: Alexandra Tolstoy Alice Stori Liechtenstein Anna Spiro Ashley Hicks Ben Pentreath & Charlie McCormick Cath Kidston Padgham Erica Davies Flora Soames Henry Holland Kit Kemp Lucinda Chambers Lulu Lytle Luke Edward Hall & Duncan Campbell Matilda Goad Penny Morrison Robert Kime Skye McAlpine Sophie Conran

Roy Axe devoted his life to car styling. From his earliest years, he had a passion for the way cars looked and having secured a job in the engineering department of Rootes he soon persuaded his bosses to allow him to study in the styling department. From then on, his course for a life in style was set. Axe enjoyed a stellar career. At just 29 he became design director at Rootes and Chrysler UK where he was responsible for styling many influential classics. During a period of massive expansion he worked for Chrysler in both the UK and the USA and headed up a truly international operation that shaped cars from all over the world - including the groundbreaking Chrysler Minivan. He also enjoyed a spell leading Rover's design team during one of its most embattled periods, overseeing the launch of the 800- and 200-series and the development of some exciting prototypes. A Life in Style is a unique first-hand account of corporate life in the automotive industry, and the sometimes troubled circumstances in which new cars were created. The accounts of battles between styling and engineering departments, as well as the cultural differences between car people from all four corners of the world are absolutely fascinating - as is the life story of a man who proved that nice guys can succeed in the car industry.

Tools for navigating today's hyper-connected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent white water world. Design Unbound presents a new tool set for having agency in the twenty-first century, in what the authors characterize as a white water world-rapidly changing, hyperconnected, and radically contingent. These are the tools of a new kind of practice that is the offspring of complexity science, which gives us a new lens through which to view the world as entangled and emerging, and architecture, which is about designing contexts. In such a practice, design, unbound from its material thingness, is set free to design contexts as complex systems. In a world where causality is systemic, entangled, in flux, and often elusive, we cannot design for absolute outcomes. Instead, we need to design for emergence. Design Unbound not only makes this case through theory but also presents a set of tools to do so. With case studies that range from a new kind of university to organizational, and even societal, transformation, Design Unbound draws from a vast array of domains: architecture, science and technology, philosophy, cinema, music, literature and poetry, even the military. It is presented in five books, bound as two volumes. Different books within the larger system of books will resonate with different reading audiences, from architects to people reconceiving higher education to the public policy or defense and intelligence communities. The authors provide different entry points allowing readers to navigate their own pathways through the system of books.