Author(s): UNKNOWN

Design

This text explores the role of colour, allied to form and materials, in distinguishing the furniture, lighting, textiles and wallpaper designs that were a product of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - creative and innovative years. One important designer whose career spanned this period is the Italian Ettore Sottsass. His radical design philosophies contributed to the emergence of the "anti-design" experimentation of the 1960s and early 1970s and to the formation in 1981 of the Milan-based design collective known as Memphis. What the 1960s and 1980s had in common was colour. Vibrant, unorthodox, liberated: colour was a rich and defining element in the vocabulary of the design language of these years. The book provides an introduction to design of the period and profiles the work of some key designers, including Verner Panton, Vico Magistretti, Marimekko, Pierre Paulin, Gaetano Pesce and Memphis. Illustrated throughout, it should appeal to all those with an interest in modern and contemporary design.