Motivations

A friend of mine recently asked me how come, if I was so interested in current affairs, that I did not choose to write about them on my blog. He wondered why I would ignore them and instead focus on design and food and books and the random events of my day.
Thing is, my blog is a space dedicated to things like design and art and books. I deliberately choose to keep my writing light because I want my blog to be a space people come to for a nice start to the day or a welcome mid-day break. I want them to feel cheered up, and hopefully a little inspired; even if it is only to try reading a book I’ve blogged about or listen to a song I've recommended.
There is a great deal of beauty and charm and relevance in the mundane, and I enjoy sharing that. I love writing about the brilliance of design and books and food and things that motivate me. I just don't see it as any less important. In any case, we all know what’s happening in the news, and there are far smarter, far more credible interpretations of it than mine that people could read.
So, this space, this blog, is my humble offering to anyone who cares to read it. Thank you, because I really appreciate you stopping by. The fact that you're reading this gives me an extreme case of the happies.

P.S. Speaking of doing things we love, is The Holstee Manifesto not the perfect poster? 

The Creative Life

I remember each jury I’ve ever had in design school. My sweaty palms, trying to make myself smile and seem confident, my friends’ faces peering back at me from the crowd as I talked about my work, hoping that the jury panel didn’t hate it. Hoping that the questions they’d ask would be something I could handle. I mostly could, but I do recall a lot of explanation-giving. 
Cut to many years later, today, with me working as a designer. I have a great work environment, very democratic (too democratic if you ask me), apolitical and indulgent of people’s time and space. However, everyone has an opinion on design. Whether they even care about colour or form or typography is immaterial, everybody has an opinion on art and design and how things should look. 
That is the very beauty of aesthetics surely, that great unifier of minds and people, but it's also the great misery of the creative soul who spent 5 years being trained in colour and form and typography and visual communication (and must have a more developed eye), but is reduced to producing work that will appeal to the 'masses' that basically, pardon my French, have no taste. It doesn't matter if we think it looks good, the masses need to like it. Bite your tongue, designers. You chose to 'create and inspire' in others and for others, now deal with it. But unless I produce incredible work, how will the masses know any better? They have no idea what I can do. The extent of my creativity. Oh well. My loss. 
So while no one questions a doctor or a lawyer when they roll out their verdicts, a designer or artist or architect is subject to a life of question, doubt and better-ways-to-do-it. 
The college juries prepared us. I guess they knew what they were doing at design school after all.

Design Files: Philippe Starck

Dapper Frenchman Philippe Starck is probably one of the most famous product designers of our time. Here's why: the man is brilliant. 
There is such a language to his work; stylish while being utilitarian, fresh while being classic, and brilliantly creative. I keep wondering how his mind works, in how many directions it must pull him, what his wife must feel living with a complete genius and if his children feel like they can never match his standard or whether his employees freeze when he calls them into his studio to discuss work because how do you tell Philippe Starck what you really think about design? Perhaps I'm over-thinking this. 
In any case, here are a few of my favourite Starck designs. 

THE JUICY SALIF, 1990

This polished aluminium juicer for Italian kitchenware company Alessi achieved cult status and is now in New York's Museum of Modern Art. For the tenth anniversary of this design, apparently 10,000 Juicy Salifs were individually numbered and gold-plated. Naturally, these are much coveted collector's items now.

WW STOOL, 1991

This varnished sand-cast aluminium stool was designed for filmmaker Wim Wenders' office.  It was made for people who preferred standing to sitting but still needed some support. Swiss furniture design group Vitra continues to produce this design.

UN ULTIME FRANC, 1999

Before the introduction of the Euro, France commissioned this award-winning commemorative Franc shaped like a wave. This was designed by Starck in collaboration with The Paris Mint. One side of the coin has a numeric '1' and the other has 'un ultime franc' or 'the ultimate franc'. Definitely a collector's item.

LOUIS GHOST CHAIR, 2004

This armchair is made of moulded polycarbonate in the Louis XV baroque style. While very delicate looking, it's supposed to be scratch-proof and weather resistant. Incidentally two of these chairs were featured on Ugly Betty in 2010, as part of Wilhelmina's office. Bet you didn't 'see' them. Ha.

BAOBAB DESK, 2005

The inspiration for this desk, as the name suggests, was the Monkey Bread Tree of Africa, also called the Baobab. The tree is traditionally a place for meeting and communication, and the shape of the desk is based on the seed of the Baobab. Again, this was made for Vitra and remains a classic design.

MISTER KNORR STOOL, 2008

Philippe Starck famously called these porcelain stools 'oversized chicken soup cubes made of gold and platinum' (they're finished with gold or platinum). 

Not too shabby for a 1000 euros.

MARIE COQUINE CHANDELIER, 2011

A cheeky and rather risky interpretation of French crystal company Baccarat's famous Zenith chandelier, this design never fails to amuse me. I keep thinking this the Starck version of giving snooty Baccarat the finger (an umbrella over the Zenith!) but we'll never know because this limited edition set of 120 pieces is all sold out. It looks incredible, don't you think?

FINALLY ALONE, 2012

Who wouldn't want a candle stand as stunning as this in their life?

This plastic see-through parallelepiped is based on Archimedes’ principle (buoyancy = weight of displaced fluid), pushing the candle up as long as it goes over.

See what I mean? Philippe Starck is an iconic designer. If you want to see more of his work head over here. Oh, and just so you know, he listens to a lot of Bollywood music. That explains the colour palette! 

Design Files: Black + White Book Covers

Who says you need colour to make a book cover attractive and eye catching?

The covers below illustrate the power of black and white. Their use of contrast and typography coupled with clever concepts make them clear winners in my book.

Designed by David Drummond 

Published by McGill-Queen's University Press

Designed by Doogie Horner 

Published by Quirk Books

Designed by Emily Harwood Blass 

Published by Random House

Designed by Gregg Kulick 

Published by Harper Perennial

Designed by Henry Sene Yee 

Published by Picador

Designed by Isaac Tobin 

Published by University of Chicago Press

Designed by Isaac Tobin 

Published by University of Chicago Press

Designed by John Gall 

Published by Knopf Books

Designed by Sarah Rainwater 

Published by Continuum

Designed by Susanne Dean 

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Designed by Barbara deWilde 

Published by Picador

She Walks in Beauty

As part of her Venus Project, Anna Utopia Giordano took classic paintings and photoshopped them to represent today's standards of beauty. It's a fantastic, thought provoking project, and so effective in its impact. 

My very favourite painting, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, has Venus stripped of all curves and surprisingly therefore, all her sensuality. I never thought her curves meant so much to me, but seeing Venus all reed-like was disturbing. It made me happy that Botticelli painted her the way he did. 

I'm no stranger to the occasional bout of I'm-overweight-and-unattractive syndrome, but I take solace in the fact that there's hardly a woman without some variety of body-image issues, no matter which end of the spectrum she belongs to. I'm so tired of discussing it, honestly. Some of us make our weight a conversation focal point at dinner parties even. I hate to generalize but this is usually a super skinny or quite thin or not-remotely-fat person. (If you fall into this category, please stop. We don't need to hear about your battle with food and exercise. We're all in the same boat and some of us are trying to get out of it. Go get yourself a snack and another topic to discuss.)

Thing is, from what the media tells us now, we're supposed to be embracing our curves. We're supposed to love our jiggly bottoms and ample breasts. This is of course from the same media that declares a celebrity pregnant if their stomach bulges even a little. Come on. You call that pregnant, I call that a good lunch.

I think the only solution really is to own what you have. Feel sexy in the skin you're in, and surround yourself with people who make you feel that way regardless of your dress size.

My new agenda is to be my healthiest (not in the moronic Delhi 'healthy' = overweight way) and happiest, and just let my body be what it needs to be. It's like I'm letting my body go to design school when all the other parents wanted their bodies to be doctors. I'll try and turn off that creeping seed of self-doubt whenever it crops up. Life's too short, really.

If one needs a little inspiration, there's always Nigella.