“When people talk about design, they’re really talking about, technically, everything in the universe that has to do with intent.” —Milton Glaser

“Design is by its very nature free. There is nothing in design that says certain things must be done in a certain way.” —Tokujin Yoshioka

“It will always be up to good designers to correct the public opinion and promote quality.” —Massimo Vignelli

What’s on the minds of the world’s leading designers? What matters most to them right now? And how do they interpret the changes and constants of today’s culture?

These were the questions on my mind towards the end of 2011, when I decided to approach eight of today’s most intriguing and prolific designers—Milton Glaser, Massimo Vignelli, Stefan Sagmeister, Giulio Cappellini, Ross Lovegrove, Tokujin Yoshioka, Dror Benshetrit, and Maarten Baas—to gather a snapshot of the modern design world. The result is Design Voices, a collection I’m proud of, and one I hope you’ll also enjoy.

Design Voices includes conversations with design legends, rising stars, graphic designers, industrial designers, and those who defy categorization. Their words provide us an opportunity to reflect on the state of modern design, and reveal the vast possibilities that the term designer carries with it today. I hope these conversations pique and satisfy your curiosity as much as they did mine. Looking forward to your feedback!

And check out the review on Coolhunting.com!

Design Voices
by Anna Carnick
edited by Jeremy Lehrer
Purchase the e-book at Amazon

In May of last year, the New York arts community was shocked and saddened by the death of thirty-five-year-old designer Tobias Wong. Blurring the lines between conceptual art and design, Wong’s work questioned the value system of objects and pretensions of designers with humor and wit. Now, in honor of his life and work, nine NYC-based designers have come together to create Brokenoff Brokenoff, an exhibition of new works that reconsider and reinterpret Mr. Wong’s design legacy, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and humor. (Gallery slideshow below.)

Wong was a talented designer and provocateur, as well as a master of clever expropriation (take, for example, This Is Not A Lamp, his Phillipe Starck Bubble-Club-chair-turned-lamp, or his gold-plated McDonald’s coffee stirrers). He was also a dear friend to the nine Brokenoff Brokenoff participating designers, who include Todd Bracher, Dror Benshetrit, Brad Ascalon, Stephen Burks, Joe Doucet, Josee Lepage, Frederick McSwain, Marc Thorpe, and David Weeks.

Reflecting on his friendship with Wong, Todd Bracher says, “My relationship with Tobi was very subtle and unspoken. I’d known him for many years through his work and personally only for about a year before his death. In that year, I felt as though my exchanges with him were sort of out of body-from mind to mind, without sounding odd-meaning we just simply ‘got’ each other. He was a sincere person whose wit and spirit cut through everything, and if you were a like person the bind became instant and strong. He has been and will continue to be greatly missed.”

Bracher’s exhibition piece, called Secondhand Romance, was inspired by Wong’s glass candlestick and smoking mitten. “The concept is a revisited candlestick where instead the hero is the cigarette,” Bracher says. “It is about taking pleasure and finding intimacy in something some see as disgusting and others see as wonderful. The idea is as Tobi had defined in his work, crossing boundaries. Saying that cigarettes too are wonderful, beautiful and sexy. They are not to be seen as wholly negative, and in some ways, even worshiped, indulging in its odor and pattern of waffling smoke.”

Describing his piece, Dror Benshetrit says: “I met Tobi while I was working on one of my first products, the Vase of Phases. The project appealed to Tobi and he approached me about including it in the Terminal 5 show at JFK. I was excited about the opportunity, especially because I appreciated his work and his vision. I admired him as a designer, artist, and thinker. In this tribute to Tobi, the vase is a symbol for our first encounter, and plays homage to Tobi’s life as a phase.”

Various Projects and Bondtoo, a new creative space in Manhattan, were close collaborators and friends of Wong’s as well, and realized his The Times of New York Candle with a limited-edition run of 1000. Describing the history behind the piece, Josee Lepage says that Wong “thought of himself, more than anything, as an observer. One of his last concepts was The Times of New York Candle. Wong saw the candle as both a tribute to the iconic newspaper and as a nostalgic commentary on printed media. To capture the olfactory essence of black ink on newsprint, a candle scent has been developed that would include guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice and floral hints, with a powdery note and velvet nuance.”

Other pieces include Frederick McSwain’s Die, a portrait of his friend made of 13,138 die (one for every day of Wong’s life), which references Wong’s early installation work and the concepts of uncertainty and risk taking so integral to his work, and Marc Thorpe’s Call Me or Copy Me, a version of Wong’s personal business card, which Thorpe transformed from plastic to gold. According to Thorpe: “I was introduced to Tobias Wong in 2001. He handed me his plastic stencil business card and said, ‘Call me or copy me.’ The business card was the essence of his design intention: to subvert the value of objects, challenge the definition of status and question originality.”

BrokenOff BrokenOff runs through tomorrow at:

Gallery R’Pure
3 East 19th Street
New York City

For more information, visit brokenoffbrokenoff.com.

Images courtesy of Gallery R’Pure, Todd Bracher, and Dror Benshetrit.

Debuting this past week at Cape Town’s Design Indaba and now stateside tonight at New York’s New Museum, Israeli-born, New York-based designer Dror Benshetrit presents his latest design – a versatile support system called QuaDror.

Four years in the making, this unique structural support geometry is made by assembling four identical, interlocking, L-shaped pieces. Initially, the designer was excited by the system’s flexibility and aesthetic. Upon further exploration, though, he soon recognized its structural integrity and broad potential applications, and began working collaboratively with a variety of experts to determine its capabilities.

The collapsible system allows for rapid assembly (from closed and flat to open and self-standing) and easy transfer (less volume in transit without giving up great load-bearing capabilities), and adapts to a variety of conditions, making it a fit for everything from product design (lamps, etc.) to trestle structures (bridges, saw horses), dividing walls, sound barriers, and architecture (frame and relief structures, and high-end dwellings, pop up structures, public art installations, emergency structures, etc.). And the collapsibility of the units and the potential use of local materials allow for low-carbon footprint and energy efficiency. In fact, according to the studio, 1750 QuaDror relief structure kits (each one creating a new emergency relief home) can fit in one 40-feet container. The studio is currently in the process of manufacturing the “QuaDror Home,” and hopes to construct the first QuaDror houses in Sierra Leone.

According to Dror: “Our goal is to inspire change. Working with creative and innovative experts from various fields, we aim to share and implement this geometry in urban design, architecture, philanthropic work, and public art. When realizing that the system could potentially bring a groundbreaking solution to the global issue of habitat, we were eager to complete our experimentations and share this discovery with the world.”

Check out the video demonstration below, plus several possible applications for QuaDror’s design. And if you’d like to learn a little more about Dror, check out studiodror.com or my recent interview with him for Dwell.com.

QuaDror from Dror on Vimeo.

*above: QuaDror table

*above: QuaDror Volume MGX (lamp)

*above: QuaDror PopUp Building

*above: QuaDror building

*above: QuaDror villa

*above: QuaDror bridge

*Images and video courtesy of Dror Benshetrit.

NY-based designer Dror Benshetrit has designed the bottle for a new, modern absinthe called fenom (a la “phenomenon”). His launch party during last weekend’s ICFF showed off both the bottle – designed with the intention of reflecting its surroundings – and the beverage inside: an absinthe handcrafted from traditional herbs – including grand wormwood – by one of France’s few remaining absinthe experts. Unlike traditional absinthes, fenom is drinkable without the traditional preparation ritual of water and sugar; in fact, it’s best served as a chilled shot or as a base for cocktails.

Describing his design, Dror tells us: “A mirror has many unusual properties that, when applied to the standard shape of a bottle, give an individual the unique ability to interact with it. In a larger atmosphere, the bottle can capture the image of the entire party from its distant spot on the shelf.”

He goes on, “The ‘f’ also plays with the traditional curves of the bottle. From one angle it is seen as the letter ‘f,’ but when turned 90 degrees it appears only as a straight, sharp line. This encourages people to spin the bottle, allowing both the ‘f’ and the mirror to transform, and providing a playful yet intimate connection between the observer and the bottle.”

To learn more about fenom, including where you can pick up your own bottle, visit fenomabsinthe.com.

*Images courtesy of Studio Dror.

This week, the Design Museum Holon presents its inaugural exhibition: “The State of Things: Design and the 21st Century.” Opening March 4th and running through May 15th, the exhibit – which takes place in the new Ron Arad-designed, Israeli building – features more than 100 objects that collectively reflect issues concerning the practice, consumption and cultural impact of contemporary international design.

*above: Design Museum Holon, by Ron Arad Architects

The star-studded cast of contributing designers includes Maarten Baas, Jaime Hayon, Max Lamb, Joris Laarman, Front, Yves Behar, Stephen Burks, Tokujin Yoshioka, Konstantin Grcic, POLKA, Tom Dixon, Ingo Maurer, the Campana Brothers and Dror Benshetrit, among others.

*above: “Cabbage Chair” by Nendo

The curated objects range from ordinary household items to life-enhancing and saving technologies. According to Design Museum Holon Creative Director, Galit Gaon: “The museum is committed to showcasing the importance of quality design and its relevance to our lives at this particular point in time; the objects in the exhibition will reveal the same ingenuity and poetry evident in the new Ron Arad building that will house them.”

*above: “Wiek Cabinet” by Maarten Baas

*above: “Brave New World Lamp” by Moooi

Each grouping of works represents a contemporary category. Whether through the materials employed, the concepts conveyed, or the uses intended, these objects reflect our times so acutely that they could only have been made in the last few years: thus, the current “state of things.”

*above: “Cappellini Love Table” by Stephen Burks

For more information on the new Design Museum Holon, check out www.dmh.org.
Tel: +972 7 32151515
Fax: +972 3 6520331

*Images courtesy of Design Museum Holon.

Designer Dror Benshetrit’s new 3D Printed Lamp- Volume.MGX- transforms a flat, SLS print of interlocking squares into a super-cool, cube-shaped lamp. When unfolded and placed on its stand, the hundreds of squares are illuminated. Applying what he calls “squared square geometry,” Dror produced the lamp from one, collapsible piece. Manufactured by .MGX by Materialise, the lamp debuted during Design Miami/.

Collapsing Volume.MGX from Studio Dror on Vimeo.