Phil Patton – Page 13 – DesignApplause

About Phil Patton

Phil Patton is a contributing editor at Departures and Esquire magazines, a contributing writer at Wired and an automotive design writer for The New York Times. He was a regular contributor to The New York Times House and Home section and, in 1998, originated the “Public Eye” column. He has written many books including: Made in USA: The Secret History of the Things That Made America (Grove-Weidenfeld, 1992), which was named a New York Times notable book of the year; Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile (Simon & Schuster, 2002); Michael Graves Designs: The Art of the Everyday Object (Melcher, 2004); and Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51 (Villard, 1998). He has also written for Art in America, ARTnews, Connoisseur, Geo, Harper’s Bazaar, Men’s Journal, The New Republic, New York Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Travel + Leisure, Traveler, The Village Voice and Vogue. Patton was Editorial Consultant on the Guggenheim Museum’s “Motorcycle” show in 1998 and Consulting Curator for the “Different Roads” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1999. In 2000 he was consultant and contributor for “On the Job: Design and the American Office” at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Slat chair. Scott henderson. ICFF 2011.

May 26, 2011

click on photo to enlarge

Scott Henderson, known for his witty and playful designs for table and home such as his salad tools for Wovo and carafe Vin Eau Carafe, showed an equally clever chair at ICFF. Slat Chair is composed of pieces evocative of barrel staves, that provide the structure with both tension and compression.
He explained: “Two semi-circular polished stainless steel rods are interlocked by a tight steam bend on both ends of a molded aircraft grade birch veneer ‘slat’ and held in tension.” The seat, by contrast “is suspended in the negative spaces between the base slats that also form the back support. The end result is a highly sculptural light-weight chair, the concept for which is applicable to other furniture pieces.” Visually, the result suggests ribs or other bones and evokes both Renaissance chairs and Frank Gehry’s hockey stick inspired furniture. [ scott henderson ]

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Umbra and pratt design students team up.

May 26, 2011

The 7th Annual Umbra | Pratt Design Competition recently took place in New York City at the Manhattan Center during the Pratt Show, where Umbra unveiled this year’s winning designs and introduced the Pratt student designers. This year’s esteemed judges included Surface Magazine’s editor-in-chief Dan Rubinstein; Harry Allen, founder and president of Harry Allen Design and a Pratt Alumnus; Apartment Therapy co-founder and CEO, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, and Debera Johnson, Pratt’s academic director of sustainability. Umbra’s director of design Matt Carr once again led the competition, which was coordinated by Pratt faculty members Noah King and Scott Lundberg under the direction of the new Chair of Pratt’s Industrial Design department, Steve Diskin.

The students whose winning designs are determined by the Umbra design team to be eligible for production and meet Umbra’s criteria of quality and affordability, will be given the opportunity to work with Umbra’s team to create a prototype. If a design is manufactured, it will appear in Umbra’s catalog and earn royalties for the student designer and Pratt Institute. Talk Bulletin Board by Carolina Kim, the 1st Prize Winner in 2008, the CONCEAL Shelf and WISHBONE Soap Dish –both winners of the 1st Umbra | Pratt Design Competition –are all among Umbra’s top-selling products. In keeping with Umbra’s commitment to Pratt, all packaging, catalog and online images for products designed by winners of the Umbra | Pratt Design Competition will include the fact that a percentage of the profits of the design benefits Pratt Institute’s Industrial Design program.

“The annual competition sponsored by Umbra provides an invaluable educational experience for Pratt’s industrial design students to develop their skills as designers, to work with a distinguished client, and to see the possibility of their designs going into production,” said Concetta Stewart, dean of Pratt’s School of Art and Design. “We appreciate that Umbra has afforded our students this great opportunity for seven years. We look forward to continuing this partnership in the future,” she added.

[ pratt ] [ umbra ]

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2011 noho design district.

May 10, 2011

may 13 – 16 nyc.

the second annual Noho Design District event, running concurrently with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and New York Design Week. the Noho Design District is a Design Week incubator for new ideas and emerging talents. [ details ]

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Passione italiana. Italian motorcycle design.

Apr 16, 2011

News to me! The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA), in association with the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, introduces Passione Italiana – an examination of the astonishing design passion and technological advancement behind the most desired motorcycles in the world. This exhibition presents eleven masterpieces of Italian motorcycle design spanning the last five decades including motorcycles by MV Agusta, Ducati, Bimota and Moto – Morini.

[ The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) ]

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Wasara sustainable tableware.

Mar 25, 2011

now at national building museum shop

Eco-friendly paper tableware made of reed pulp, bamboo, and bagasse (sugarcane waste), which is usually discarded in the process of making sugar. Fully biodegradable.

[ national museum shop ] [ wasara ]

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The century on modern design.

Mar 21, 2011

Wonderful new book on design.

One of the world’s most important collections of twentieth-century design—the Stewart Collection in Montreal—celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2010. The Stewart Collection incorporates iconic furniture, ceramics, textiles, posters, graphic art, jewelry, and everyday objects from the 1930s to today.[ more info ]

THE CENTURY OF MODERN DESIGN
Edited with Introduction by David A. Hanks
Hardcover / 480 pages / 500 illustrations
US $49.95 / Can $59.00
Flammarion, distributed by Rizzoli through Random House
ISBN: 978-2-08-030161-1
[ amazon ] [ rizzoli ]
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Kuubo table for vitra. Naoto fukasawa.

Feb 24, 2011

naoto fukasawa has designed a new table for vitra.

Executed with Fukaswa’s usual cool precision, it is called Kuubo. As Vitra notes, it “exudes purist elegance.” Its theme is hidden storage. One image shows a couple of dozen lemons tucked beneath one of its work surfaces. Are we to read a lemon into lemonade joke into this? It is also in keeping with the new trend in furniture–the “common table” that can be used for meetings or as a shared surface combining in effect many cubicles. “Kuubo lends itself to many different kinds of work processes – particularly where emphasis is placed on a successful joint team effort and where a culture of open communication is encouraged,” says Vitra’s prospectus. “Kuubo is well suited as a central team table in such an environment, serving many purposes as it can be easily adapted within seconds for different situations and uses.”
designer: naoto fukasawa
producer: vitra

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Hellraiser. Karim rashid for alessi.

Feb 19, 2011

Karim Rashid’s new tabletop collection for Alessi is called Hellraiser. Items include a basket, tray and fruit bowl. Using complex computer controlled manufacturing the series features cut-out geometric shapes, hovering between random and woven.

designer: karim rashid
producer: alessi

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1,000 product designs.

Feb 13, 2011

Product design has changed dramatically in recent years as everything, from computers to microwaves to MP3 players, has become more compact and more powerful. Less seems to be more, as everything becomes portable and more user friendly. 1,000 Product Designs features the most innovative designs in recent years. This unprecedented collection of products from all over the globe is a window into different cultures and societies, featuring everything from furnishings to personal items and accessories to electronics.

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Esquire magazine and their logo sweepstakes

Feb 1, 2011

esquire magazine commissions twelve artists and designers to re-engineer their logo and kick off a logo sweepstakes.

tom geismar

universal everything

aaron rayburn

tronic

Esquire’s logo sweepstakes is part of a unique experiment in Augmented Reality with GoldRun — a technology firm who helped put the logo letters from the sweepstakes all across America. Find them, and you could win an iPad. How to find and Esquire letter in your city. Letters created by design firm Tronic.

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