Product Description

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'. Glancing through the volumes, the reader will gain an understanding not only of the history of design, but a history of taste and culture. The book is an extraordinary journey through the objects that have shaped our society, from the first attempts to combine function and beauty in the nineteenth century, through the machine aesthetics of the thirties, the advent of plastic and other new materials in the fifties and sixties, up to the 'classics'-to-be of the last ten years. 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. The texts also uncover curious anecdotes about the design, and the process involved in creating it. In many cases the products are described with details that have not been published before, informing the reader about materials and process, in addition to providing rich insights into each designer's oeuvre. The contributors have each been invited to write in accordance with their area of specialty and passion. Not only writers, but designers, retailers, critics, curators, architects, historians, and professors, each of international renown, combine to bring a unique perspective on design that is highly detailed and refreshing. Through the informative texts and dazzling quantity of images including sketches, patent drawings, posters, comics and so on, we learn that the safety pin was patented in 1849 and that the famous Thonet chair N. 14, designed in 1859, never went out of production. We realize how clever the zip fastener is and how beautiful the Concorde. While this collection will be groundbreaking in terms of its range of products and periods, it is also the first of its kind with regards to presenting accurate information. With Alan Fletcher's beautiful design, this is a unique collection that unites factual information with rarely seen images. "999 Design Classics" is a honed and laboriously-selected list of products, most of which are still in production. The objects contained within truly encapsulate what design is and what design will be for decades to come. The following categories of product are featured in the book: Aeroplanes, Ashtrays, Bottle Openers, Bath accessories, Benches, Bicycles, Bins, Boats, Bottles, Bowls, Boxes, Briefcases, Buses, Cabs, Cars, Calculators, Calendars, Cameras, Candleholders, Caravan, Chairs (armchairs, folding chair, lounge chairs, office chairs, sofas, stools), Clocks, Clothes Stands, Cocktail Shakers, Computers, Containers, Crayons, Cruets, Desks, Door Handles, Drill Bits, Egg Cups, Fans, Flasks, Flatware, Games , Glassware, Gliders, Helicopters, Ice Buckets, Knives, Letter Openers, Lighting, Lighters, Lunchboxes, Mailboxes, Motorcycles, Office Systems, Paperclips, Pens, Pencils, Pencil Sharpeners, Pins, Pitchers, Post-it Notes, Pots Pans, Radios, Record Players. The book further includes: Rulers, Safety Pins, Salt Pepper Shakers, Scales, Scissors, Sewing machines, Shavers, Shelves, Sports equipment, Staplers, Storage, Switches, Tables, Table services, Telephones, Televisions, Tools, Torches, Toys, Tractors, Trains, Typewriters, Utensils, Vacuum cleaners, Vases, Walkmans, Watches, Whistles, and the Zipper.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56445 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Hardcover
• 3300 pages

Icon, May, 2006
Phaidon Design Classics is invaluable and will not need replacing as nearly as soon as that ‘timeless’ ipod.

Arena, May, 2006
Even by its own impossibly high standards, possibly the best book Phaidon has published to date.

Design Week, 13 April, 2006
An intriguing journey not only through the history of design, but also through a history of taste and culture.

Customer Reviews

A must have for all designers and design addicts.
This 11kg compilaion of the 999 "best" design is a great source of inspiration and information. With short but precise descriptions, and pictures of all kinds of designs, you will get a good overview of some of the most influential designs in history. Off course, as with all other books about "great design", you will probably disagree with the authors on quite a few designs. But thats how design works. It's all very interesting after all.

Worth every penny...

999 Classic Designs
The Phaidon Design Classics contains fascinating articles about nearly 1000 items, in 3 heavy volumes. I would recommend them to anyone who has the slightest interest in why things are the way they are.

The text is concise, but packed with detail, and the contributors clearly have a passion for the objects that they describe. The illustrations are given plenty of space, and the patent application line drawings are particular effective. The choice of entries is wide and varied, but the Editors do seem to have a liking for chairs. There are 180 of them, and that's not including stools, chaises longues, sofas, etc.!

The case looks attractive, and has a useful carrying handle, but satisfies none of the requirements of a classic design, being completely impossible to open.

My son asked "Why not 1000 designs?" Well I suppose there always has to be room for one more. If they are so keen on seating, my vote would be for the most valuable and widely used "Throne" of them all, Thomas Crapper's U-bend flush toilet.

Phaidon Design Book Good - Packaging Design Terrible
This book contains some of the best known designs around, and the pages give a very good run down on the inventor and the idea behind each item, when you can get into it.....

The books come locked in a plastic outer casing, which has to be the worst designed casing I have ever seen on any book.

I broke the case in 2 minutes and got the 1st book out in 10, it really is that bad, I also have a 2 inch gauge on my hand where the plastic cut into me. (Shame I have had to spend half of my review on it)

This should not put you off the books themselves look and feel great, I haven't read about all 999 designs yet, but the ones I have read are very informative......

Worth the money? I am not sure, as with anything like this it is their opinion on designs and not mine, but the work that has gone into it makes the price what it is.

Would I recommend someone to buy it, yes but it would have to be a secondhand set that is pre-opened as the hassle getting through the packaging ruined my first impressions......