Phaidon Design Classics

Phaidon editors

A 'design classic' is an industrially manufactured object with timeless aesthetic value. It serves as a standard of its kind and, despite the year in which it was designed, is still up to date. The collection presented in these three volumes has been put together by a group of experts following the above criteria. The objects are presented chronologically, beginning with an elegant pair of Chinese bonsai scissors from the early 1800s, still in production today, and ending with Jasper Morrison's recent 'brunch set', which is destined to become a 'classic'. The book includes not only classic objects created by great and internationally renowned designers, such as Breuer, Le Corbusier, Dreyfuss, Eames, Yanagi and Castiglioni, to name but a few, but also anonymously designed pieces, such as the clothes peg, the deck chair, the corkscrew and the chopstick, which, in spite of lacking a specific designer, have achieved such perfection in design and functionality that they have eliminated the possibility of improvement. From the paperclip, to the Alvar Aalto Savoy vase, to the Jaguar E Type, all of the objects featured in the book fill our desks, cupboards, kitchens, purses, dreams and pockets. Each product is presented on two, four or six pages and accompanied by a text, written by one of over fifty experts in the field of design. The texts provide a historical context, with key information about the development of the design, and an explanation as to why that particular design is important and groundbreaking.

A three-volume set containing the most comprehensive collection of design classics, created in the last 200 years. 999 objects selected by a panel of experts that includes designers, architects, auctioneers, critics, curators, journalists and academics. Each object is accompanied by a text written by one of over fifty experts from the field of design, with precise information about each product, each designer, each manufacturer and their history.
Illustrated with a wide range of photographs, original sketches, patents, prototypes and rarely seen archival images, painstakingly researched and collected directly from designers, archives and manufacturers and presented in a specially designed carrying unit