The A-Z of Modern Design

by Bernd Polster, Claudia Neumann, Markus Schuler

This encyclopedia is the most comprehensive guide available to international product design of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It includes more than 300 entries on influential designers and studios and the most important design-led manufacturers worldwide, both past and present, from Frank Lloyd Wright, Raymond Loewy and Philippe Starck to Apple, Ikea and BMW. The products featured range from classic cars, furniture and ceramics to the latest MP3 players. Each entry includes an informative profile, a biography or company history, and a product chronology, and is accompanied by colour photographs.

Genres: Art

539 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

Bernd Polster is an author. He spent the first eleven years of his life in the village Winsen an der Aller in Northern Germany. As he was visiting secondary school in Celle he cofounded and designed the prize winning school magazine bi; 1970 its second issue was illegelized because of an educational "sex supplement". He studied in Bochum, where he listened to the lectures of the marxist philosopher Leo Kofler, and in Bonn. His main field of interest was „Kritik der bürgerlichen Wissenschaft“ (Critique of bourgeois science). He was awarded his diploma in psychology - instead of the required experiment - for a philosophical thesis on the topic „Wissen als Vorraussetzung wissenschaftlichen Lernens" (Knowledge as a requirement for scientific learning), an examination of the incompetences of academical psychology.
After some years as school psychologist in Ahrweiler and Cologne he picked up an interest for photography and art. Exhibitions with collages, drawings, and photographs of punk musicians and shut down filling stations followed. In 1980 he began working as freelance author.
Since the late Nineties Bernd Polster has been running normalbuch as chief editor and art director, an office for the conceptual design and production of illustrated books (book packaging), with Eduard Rühmann (founder of normal records, one of the early German independent labels), as well as formguide.de, an internet platform for German furniture and home accessory design. Followed by formweh.de, a design blog. As an author and editor of many design books he is seen as a renowned expert on international design history.
He lives in Bonn with his wife and two children.

Reviews

[Jill Holm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully designed book with summaries and timelines for a number of modern industrial designers. The summaries tend to be a bit pompous (I wonder if some were written by the designers themselves???) but all in all a valuable book at least for the photographs.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

More of an encyclopedia than a book to read, this text is beautifully illustrated with over 2800 photographs. It is extremely comprehensive and is really a "must have" for anyone interested in design, art, and architecture. Each artist, who are listed in alphabetical order, has a one or two page entry with text providing an overview of their designs and impact as well as a timeline of their career and product creations. Each entry is wonderfully illustrated with numerous colored photographs of their work. The entries reference each other. It is a wonderful source of general information as well as a starting point to find out more about certain artists and styles. While I initially borrowed this from the library, I will be purchasing it for my bookcase.

[Tyrran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this more as a reference guide rather than as a book that I read from page to page.