Design Debate

What a great name, I think they thought so too as the cover kind of shouts it! Authors Alberto Vieceli and Sebastian Cremers set out to collect images of bookends for an amazing catalogue of the hard working ornaments that prop up our favourite titles.   Presenting them all in black and white does give them an equalising quality. I like how the examples are arranged by type, you can really see how varied the art of propping is, and how book owners love to display their personalities proudly on their shelves. I am particularly partial to the Star Wars ones, or the parts of the body. Very intriguing!  Compiled between 2019 and 2022 (interesting years to be sure), the authors managed to photograph more than 2,000 bookends. Published by Everyedition, The End of Books is for the completist, and of course the book lover, if you have space in your bookcase that is.   

As I gaze out my window today it is very grey, cold and soggy. So instead I will gaze into my computer window and dream of long-gone summers. Danish ones to be exact, captured by photographer Sven Türck in the 1930s. It's the fashion that catches my eye, and that carefree feeling that summer holidays can bring. Plenty of fun, be that at the beach, on a bike or giggling amongst flowers. What power a photographer has when preserving history. The 1930s were overshadowed by economic hardship and an approaching war, yet here, in Türck's world, we are whisked off to a Danish idyll that I, for one, am quite happy to lose myself in today. Perhaps that sense of idyll isn't entirely accidental. Türck was an illustration photographer with a studio in Copenhagen, and his agency sold what were described as 'situation pictures' for advertising and othe...

Martin Reznick has provided the perfect setting for furniture designer Marc Krusin's pieces, moody film noir. Not the usual way to capture a collection but Krusin wanted to commision imagery he could use to promote his beautiful pieces. Reznick had a free-rein and I love what he has come up with. Comfortable with intricate illustrations, Reznick chose only black for his series of drawings. With the feeling of a crime scene, the tables and chairs cast shadows and pieces of everyday life are set for us to observe.  Reznick also created a poster, just to tie the narrative together. A really fresh way to present furniture design. Krusin's timeless pieces brilliantly play their part, rendered with all the nuisances of line.      Originally found at Creative Boom .  

    Ooo these look lovely. I love a vintage car, they just encourage you to gaze, to stare and appreciate every line and curve. The beauty of these drawings is that they invite you to stay a while longer and take in every inch of the craftsmanship and skill.  Italian artist and photographer Alessandro Paglia has really captured the spirit of these classic pieces of design, all through hours of detailed pen work. His subjects range from a 1937 Bugatti Atlantic Type 57 to a 1970 Lamborghini Miura.  More than photography, Paglia's drawings are hyper-real making use of the paper's texture and creating artworks that go beyond black and white.  originally found at The Cool Hunter . 

By chance on Pinterest (oh I love Pinterest !) I came across the photographs of Vivian Maier . It seems I am a little slow on this one, I did not know of this lady's great work, and it really is mesmerising. Just in case you are as clueless as I was, here's a bit about Vivian Maier.  It was at first her photographs that drew me in, but it is her story that really puts them in perspective. Vivian's work might never have seen the light of day if it wasn't for one man, John Maloof. She was an American woman with French roots living in New York, and then Chicago, working as a nanny. Born in 1926, her life has been pieced together through the people she worked for and boxes of paper she had collected. That is how we know about her. The woman who was much loved by the children she had nannied, described as a free spirit but intensely private, a kind of eccentric Mary Poppins, fell on hard times in her latter years. She had been homeless, but three of the ...