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Swedish Design
Book by Helgeson, Susanne, Nyberg, Ken
- GenresDesign
Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 11, 2021
THE SKINNY: if you like design and especially Swedish design, this book is a visual stunner worth flipping through even if all you do is look at the pretty pictures.
Monographs can be hit or miss for me, especially design centered ones. Sometimes they’re great and really give you insight on the subject, many times they just give you some decent pictures of the designer’s work sprinkled over humble brags that preserve their proprietary black box design process.
Swedish Design in my eyes is the former and an exceptional example of it. In that Swedish collectivist spirit, it focuses on a country and its representative works rather than a single designer. The book starts with a beautiful chronology that showcases the evolution of a design aesthetic that started with a nationalist bent and transformed into a movement that has become both outward looking and cosmopolitan while still retaining its endemic style. After the brief, visually aided history, it montages short journalistic profiles of Sweden’s most consequential modern designers with the occasional reflective essay on the future of design flashed between cuts.
The thing I enjoyed most: the design of the book itself. Nothing bothers me more than a poorly designed book about design and almost nothing brings me more satisfaction than holding a brilliant piece of coffee table fodder that pulls me into every page. The visuals are next level, a show in their own right with 11 different photographers involved. They evoke the elegance of every single piece of furniture, architecture, ceramic, glassware, textile, appliance, and the likes in a way that is rhythmic without being rote and demands examination of each work.
This book was published in 2000 and it has aged well in my opinion. I’d love to see a follow up!
Monographs can be hit or miss for me, especially design centered ones. Sometimes they’re great and really give you insight on the subject, many times they just give you some decent pictures of the designer’s work sprinkled over humble brags that preserve their proprietary black box design process.
Swedish Design in my eyes is the former and an exceptional example of it. In that Swedish collectivist spirit, it focuses on a country and its representative works rather than a single designer. The book starts with a beautiful chronology that showcases the evolution of a design aesthetic that started with a nationalist bent and transformed into a movement that has become both outward looking and cosmopolitan while still retaining its endemic style. After the brief, visually aided history, it montages short journalistic profiles of Sweden’s most consequential modern designers with the occasional reflective essay on the future of design flashed between cuts.
The thing I enjoyed most: the design of the book itself. Nothing bothers me more than a poorly designed book about design and almost nothing brings me more satisfaction than holding a brilliant piece of coffee table fodder that pulls me into every page. The visuals are next level, a show in their own right with 11 different photographers involved. They evoke the elegance of every single piece of furniture, architecture, ceramic, glassware, textile, appliance, and the likes in a way that is rhythmic without being rote and demands examination of each work.
This book was published in 2000 and it has aged well in my opinion. I’d love to see a follow up!
Displaying 1 of 1 review