Victor Margolin perhaps a mistake of the marketing department rather than the editors since we are presented with a coherent Phaidon Design Classics editorial strategy—a long march through four centuries 3 volumes (London: Phaidon Press, 2006) ISBN of designs. 0714843997, 3,300 pages, illustrated, index, $175.00 Each object warrants at least two pages, one for an image or images and one for text, while some objects Bruce Mau’s S M L XL, published in 1995, set a new have extra pages for more visuals. Most likely guided by record for weighty design books but that has now been Fletcher, the text layouts vary in type choice, font size, far surpassed by the three hefty volumes of Phaidon and leading while the visuals range from the standard Design Classics. The books weigh in at eighteen pounds promotional photographs to advertisements, documen- and call for a body builder’s stamina to lift them. To tary images, and patent drawings. make it easier, the publisher has provided a special The challenge to designing such an extensive collec- plastic carrying rack. Designed by Konstantin Grcic, tion of products is to not have the volumes look like it is, unfortunately, useless once the books have been commercial catalogues. In this, the designers are only Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/desi/article-pdf/24/4/106/1714527/desi.2008.24.4.106.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 unpacked and put on a shelf. partially successful. No doubt Alan Fletcher had some Phaidon Design Classics features photographs and say in the strategy to present a large variety of visuals but short essays that describe 999 objects, evenly divided the plethora of staged photographs, no doubt provided among the three volumes. It would be unfair to suggest by the product manufacturers, still gives much of the that Grcic’s ecologically wasteful carrying rack is the volumes a catalogue look. 1000th object, the one that jumped off the page and into The books also feature an abundance of the patent use, but it is nonetheless ironic that a set of volumes drawings but their value to the reader, either in terms purporting to represent an impressive array of outstand- of visual pleasure or information, is questionable. ing products designed in the last four-hundred years Perhaps the designers had in mind Siegfried Giedion’s should be accompanied by such an unsustainable pack- Mechanization Takes Command, where the abundant patent aging device. illustrations reinforced the author’s point that American By contrast, the volumes themselves are hand- invention was an exceptional process, that was supported somely designed. Art directed by the late Alan Fletcher, a by a well-codified process of documenting ideas and former partner in Pentagram, and put together by Hoop protecting an interest in them through registration with Design, the books feature bright yellow covers with the U.S. Patent Office. large black stencil numbers that indicate the sequence of In the overall design, there is a problem of redun- objects contained in each volume. The numbers in effect dancy that contributes unnecessarily to the bulk. Instead function as the titles for the volumes while the actual title of having a single index of products, product categories, Phaidon Design Classics appears below them in red, both and designers, as well as a list of authors, in the final on the cover and the spine. The covers also feature an volume, the same information is repeated in each of the unnecessary descriptive text that characterizes the objects three books. Some of the photo spreads are also exces- within as “definitive models of lasting influence and sive with two pages, for example, being dedicated to a enduring significance.” They are said to possess “time- photograph of Absolute Vodka bottles, an image that is less quality” and to be “perfect in their design.” The text ever present in any number of upscale magazines. also asserts that the objects have “remained unchanged No information is provided on how the products since their creation,” implying that we are looking things were chosen. I presume that experts were asked to that have endured since time immemorial. produce lists from which the final selection was culled. This is a bit much, given that the objects are Many of the entries are exactly those one would expect— presented in chronological sequence, the most recent the canonical furniture and household goods start- ones having existed for only several years. Some of ing with Christopher Dresser and moving up through the objects, particularly the electronic devices such as Phillipe Stark. For unknown reasons, some designers like telephones and computers have already been replaced Jean Prouvé are represented by an inordinate number of by later models. As far as current users are concerned, examples. While there are also planes, trains, boats, and the first Nintendo Gameboy, the Motorola StarTAC cell automobiles, the choice of which to include is quirkier. phone, and the Sinclair “plug and play” computer are Essential cars like the Ford Model T and the Chrysler all things of the past. Clearly, many of the products that Airflow are included but many other important exam- are showcased in the volumes were important at a given ples are missing. Likewise with airplanes and trains. historic moment but were then replaced either by more While small boats and yachts are incorporated, none of advanced or contemporary counterparts. Why then the great ocean liners are, nor is the Graf Zeppelin, even characterize the lot as timeless and perfect? This was though an early hot air balloon is featured.

106 Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 4 Autumn 2008 Of particular interest, however, are the other loose ies but less useful for scholars than Mel Byars’ extensive categories of objects. One comprises common everyday Design Encyclopedia, which happens to define its entries things like bobby pins, lead pencils, PEZ dispensers, by designer or design office rather than object. whistles, corkscrews, crayons, and post boxes. Although We will continue to see more such volumes exem- Henry Petroski has written about some of these objects plified by the endless stream of illustrated product in The Evolution of Useful Things it is both informative compendia produced by Charlotte and Peter Fiell for and entertaining to encounter them in these volumes, Taschen or the recently published book, The AZ of Modern especially in full color and with concise accounts of Design published by Merrill, which in weight almost their origins. The editors also include canonical exam- rivals one of the Phaidon volumes even as it includes in ples of packaging such as the Campari soda bottle, the a single source almost as many illustrations—2800—as Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser designed by GK Design the three Phaidon books put together. I’d like to think in Tokyo, and the Marmite Jar. Of questionable inclusion that there are only so many times that people will buy are foodstuffs such as Wrigley chewing gum, Rowntree’s the same repackaged images of Eames chairs and Braun chocolate beans called Smarties, the lollypop and the appliances but then again every modern museum in the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/desi/article-pdf/24/4/106/1714527/desi.2008.24.4.106.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Polo mint. While I have always advocated a broad defi- world wishes to have its own Warhol and Stella paintings nition of design, the inclusion of candy, gum, and mints so why shouldn’t every publisher want its own book of opens up a Pandora’s box that could easily engulf the design classics? entire three volumes. Why not the first chocolate bar, the potato chip, and the earliest carbonated drinks? The list is endless and certainly the subject of another project. As a counterpart to the questionable inclusions, there are some inexcusable omissions, notably products from outside the Euro-American and Japanese orbit. The book opens with a pair of seventeenth-century scissors designed in China but we read little more about Asian products besides those from Japan. There is nothing from the Near or Middle East or Africa and only one project (that I can count) from Latin America, the Butaque chair by Cuban-born Mexican designer Clara Porset. Both in traditional and modern terms, such omissions give the volumes a cultural bias that is wide open to legitimate criticism. If indeed, the included objects are presented as timeless classics, are we to believe that no such equiva- lents exist or have existed in other parts of the world than Europe, America, and Japan? Oddly enough, there is one modern Asian product besides those from Japan, the Ambassador, an Indian car produced by Hindustan Motors in 1948. This reverses the traditional strategy of art history surveys that include the traditional art and decorative objects from countries that were on the periph- ery of modernity but leave out anything modern. A strength of the trilogy is the short essays that accompany each project. The authors include a few well-known design history scholars such as Penny Sparke and Catherine McDermott, although many more might have been enlisted. I also recognized the names of a few designers, journalists, and critics, although most of the authors were unknown to me. The written information contributes to the value of these books as reference volumes although how they will be used and by whom remains to be seen. Information on design clas- sics appears in many other books, while it is the research on lesser-known objects that makes these volumes more valuable. They are a worthwhile investment for librar-

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