Phaidon Design Classics

Description

The three-volume book is an authoritative collection of design classics, which will include 999 industrially manufactured products, carefully selected by a group of experts. From cars to furniture, from tableware to cameras, from everyday objects to aeroplanes, this breadth of classic design has never before been collated. These volumes will be the sourcebooks on design from the early 1800’s to the present, bringing together patents, prototypes, old advertisements, original drawings, images showing the process of manufacture, as well as rare archival photographs. Over fifty authors ranging from designers to curators, critics, and academics, have contributed with short texts for each objects, providing detailed research and precise information.

‘A mine of information about those little everyday things we never think about – impressive in its scale and ambition – as a reference book Phaidon Design Classics is invaluable and will not need replacing as nearly as soon as that ‘timeless’ iPod.’
Icon ‘An intriguing journey not only through the history of design, but also through a history of taste and culture.’
Design Week ‘999 of the best-designed things ever … What the Oxford dictionary is to words, this is to man-made objects. … You won’t want to put it down’
The Guardian‘The ultimate reference tool…’
Home Accents Today‘Smartly written and lavishly illustrated, Design Classics is an extraordinarily ambitious attempt to catalogue items of “aesthetic value and timeless quality.”’
Art + Auction‘Creative cross-fertilization is a recurring theme in these volumes, which are so engagingly written they would be great bedside reading.’
The Philadelphia Inquirer‘Public reaction has not been kind to the Toblerone redesign, which altered a product so recognisable it features among the 999 objects in Phaidon’s book of Design Classics.’
DeZeen.com