[.ca] Designing the 21st Century (ISBN 3822848026)

Chronique amazon.fr:
Intituler un ouvrage Design du XXIe siècle peut sembler étrange. En effet, nous venons tout juste d'entrer dans ce nouveau siècle. En tracer un bilan peut sembler prématuré. Pourtant dès que l'on parcourt ce volumineux ouvrage, le propos des deux auteurs trouve une certaine pertinence. En près de 576 pages, Charlotte et Peter Fiell recensent près de cent designers qui, aujourd'hui, construisent les modes et le monde de demain. Certains, plus connus, plus médiatiques, sont déjà des stars (Ron Arad, Büro für Form, Jasper Morrison, Philippe Stark). D'autres (Ilkka Suppanen, Inflate, Jam), ne sont pour l'instant réputés que pour quelques réalisations remarquées des professionnels. Chacun de ces créateurs, classés alphabétiquement, occupe plusieurs pages. Leurs produits les plus emblématiques, de la voiture au mobilier, en passant par les étoffes, la technologie de pointe, sont présentés avec un grand souci de clarté. Enfin, l'un des mérites de cet ouvrage consiste à laisser la parole à ces designers qui en quelques mots expriment l'état d'esprit qui les anime. Designing the 21st Century doit donc être considéré comme un véritable dictionnaire de la création contemporaine. --Damien Sausset

interested in design:
I like this book, like many of the books from TASCHEN it has great print quality and has a great design itself. The examples inside are some that I have encountered already others I had never seen before. Remember since this is not a ten volume work it is only a selection of designs rather than an exhaustive list. Keeping this in mind, I like the choices the editors made. It has designers from all over the world, is in three languages like most of Taschen publications of this kind and the print quality as mentioned before is superior.

Not a complete survey:
I bought this book to get a survey of current ideas about product design, but it is almost exclusively European in scope. There are a few Asian designers, but I counted only one from all of Latin America and nobody from Africa. Maybe it's a function of the world economy that most products are being designed in Europe, but in a book that is soliciting ideas about the next century, in which Europe becomes less and less central, I feel the geographical scope was limited for no good reason, and the result is that you start hearing the same few simple ideas over and over. Also, many of these designers are not very articulate. An opportunity missed.

Great book for modern, ultra-contemporary designs:
This book profiles industrial designers and design firms (mostly situated in Europe, as stated by the last reviewer). It's a great book if you're interested in where industrial and product design is going, rather than where it's been. The product photographs and computer-generated illustrations are plenty and colourful (common to Taschen publications). I have yet to find any other comparable books on modern, ultra-contemporary and futuristic designs. A must for anyone studying ID or product design or anyone with an interest in design.