by Mariana Siracusa

Process. 50 product designs from concept to manufacture
Jennifer Hudson, Laurence King, London 2008 (pp. 240, £ 25.00)

This book allows us to start from the very beginning, from the images that inspired a designer, and work through a numbered sequence of photographs – captioned storyboards that explain the processes behind the finished product. Today we are used to seeing only the best version from the many that were created to attract our attention. In the 50 examples making up the book, the photographs reveal the effort, the testing and the dead-ends involved in a work in progress. The book shows how designers attempt to give concrete responses to precise requirements, as the design schools teach. The Royal College of Art and the Design Academy Eindhoven are frequently mentioned, but so are companies that have carried out their own training, like Artemide, B&B, Magis and Venini, among others. Other designers are here too, those who have courageously backed their own ideas and put them into production, subsequently seeing them go on to conquer the industry.

The individual sections are presented in a series of frames to be read in sequence. The ideas sketched out are translated into renderings that allow a range of different formal solutions to be developed, quickly opening up a large number of choices. The rebirth of the design, as it were, halfway between the world of ideas and the real world, fools us into thinking we can guide it from a distance, in spite of the complete freedom of action. The illusion is shattered by our studio and working models. These are crucial for showing where the problems lie, and for exchanging ideas, since models provoke an immediate reaction and ensure that we have a clear understanding of the design, even down to the details. Although the initial use of computers can be misleading, very often the designer and the company need to create an executive file in the implementation phase. This is a piece of software, one that a machine must read and put into operation to produce the product. The precise timelines for each example reveal the trial and experimentation involved, even when these have not led to satisfactory results. This, however, is the reality of research design balanced between culture and new technology. Now, however, it is possible to review the long process of creation behind the single image chosen to encapsulate the product.

Richard Sapper took 12 months to create the new Halley table lamp for Lucesco. This takes the new cooling technology used in personal computers and applies it to new types of LEDs, producing a warm light like sunlight on an overcast day. Tokujin Yoshioka exploited the structural capacities of polyester fibres normally used in medicine, heating them to high temperatures to make them retain the shape of his Pane chair. It took 36 months from idea to product. Lorenzo Damiani needed only 18 for his OnlyOne tap, created for IB Rubinetterie. It was designed like a joystick: the same lever controls both the flow of water and the temperature. The glossary at the end of the book explains the properties of various materials and technologies that are often only familiar to experts. All this is now accessible and available for the sales department to verify. The examples chosen are far removed from the anxious cataloguing that guides some design collections, which often lack deeper reflection on the reasons for the choice of designs. Beyond the fascination with the process, an end in itself, we can see (or at least those who already had an interest in it can see) the great value in finally revealing the mystery of an image that is no longer a representation. This is design today, as René Magritte might have said.