Terence Conran: My Life in Design
£16.00£28.50 (-44%)
‘Terence Conran was instrumental in the redesigning of post-war Britain and his legacy is huge..He changed the way we lived and shopped and ate.’ Tim Marlow, Director and Chief Executive, Design Museum.
‘He spent his whole career looking for ways to make life better for everyone.’ Deyan Sudjic, Director Emeritus, Design Museum
In My Life in Design, Terence Conran tells the story of the Conran brand from the founding of the Conran Design Studio more than sixty years ago to the creation of the Design Museum, now based in a dazzling new space on High Street Kensington. Extensively illustrated chapters consider the many areas where Terence and his design team made a lasting impact on the way we live our lives, including the founding of Habitat, which introduced good, affordable homeware to the high street, his restaurants, which brought Britain out of the culinary dark ages to discover the joys of eating out and his talent for rescuing and regenerating abandoned buildings and bringing them back into exciting new use. My Life in Design is illustrated with more than 400 images – many from private collections that have not been published before.
The book is introduced by internationally renowned designer, Thomas Heatherwick, who identifies his mentor Terence Conran as ‘a modernist who, together with a tiny handful of others, gave us a new vision of Britain and ourselves.’ Now in his eighties and still designing beautiful homeware and opening buzzy, welcoming restaurants, Terence reveals the secrets and stories of this transformation of British design. Gloriously lively, opinionated and visually stimulating, this is the only book to tell the story of Terence Conran’s remarkable career in his own words.
Terence Conran: My Life in Design will appeal to designers, students and all those who have grown up with the work of the multi-talented Sir Terence Conran.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Conran, 1st edition (8 Sept. 2016) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 264 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1840917202 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1840917208 |
| Dimensions | 20.64 x 2.54 x 26.04 cm |
by The Navigator
Conran’s has been a designer, and highly successful one for 60 odd years. Over that time he has had his fingers in just about every design pie from household furniture and accessories to restaurants and architecture. I was interested in this book, partly out of my
own interests in design, but more as my son is just moving in that direction career wise. So an opportunity to learn from the greats…
The book is attractively produced and perhaps its greatest value is in the many photographs of Conran’s projects. The accompanying text however is disappointing. It is part biography of Conran’s professional career, and part description of the evolution of projects. But there is a lack of depth about the thinking behind any designs or their evolution. Some parts are little more than name dropping about the people he worked with (though good to credit those who had a role in his success).
So in all an adequate book, but much less interesting than it might have been.
by T. Russell
The first thing you notice is the striking appearance of the book itself, which is encouraging. The second thing may be the fatuous quote on the back: “Britain’s taste-maker in chief”, which is drivel, and Conran, though tending to pretentiousness at times, does not make this claim. What Conran actually did, which is what the book shows, is to demonstrate to the world at large that good design always existed in the UK, but it needed someone to find it, to encourage more of it, and to bring it to public attention – and he succeeded in all of these aims. Good design in furniture, homeware and fabrics could always be found in all the local independent department stores throughout Britain (our local one is still in business) whose owners worked hard to find it. Habitat was a natural development of this and showed what could be done with talent, scale and money. I can actually remember some of the designs, many of which were reproduced to death (especially chinaware and fabrics) or, as Conran a little pompously writes in the book ‘…[were] aimed perhaps a bit too much at the main market’. The book is full of illustrations – athough the photographs of the interiors of Habitat are pretty awful, even for the time – with some excellent layouts, as you might expect, and some fine graphics. All aspects of Conran’s work are examined, and the chapter ‘Architecture and Interiors’ is especially interesting – I worked in the City at the time the extensive re-modelling of old, ugly-looking buildings was taking place, and remember the astonishing transformations: it’s a pity that imaginative re-modelling is not used more today rather than cutting and pasting. In this chapter, the photographs are really excellent, and bring out the best features of both exteriors and interiors. This is a valuable history of design as perceived (and often conceived) by one man with a big idea, and, even if all you do is sweep through the pictures, much to be recommended.
by pauline webster
Well received gift for a fan of 20th century design
by Amazon Customer
Discovering how amazing Sir Terence Conran did change British people’s life in last half century. Easy to follow with many photographs.
by Dr Venn
I love “good design”. Often simple but innovative or just a twist on an existing idea or product. I was, obviously, familiar with the name Terence Conran (now Sir of course) but to be honest I was not aware of the breadth and beauty of his work.
This book is a sumptuous and glorious look through his career in design. The history is fascinating, the photographs and artwork are stunningly produced and the text is informative and warm.
It is difficult to convey just what a joy this book is to read. Sir Terence is up there with the great designers and this book provides ample evidence to support that.
by milobylo
Very well organised chapters. Easy to read and to find information I was looking for. Just what I expected.
by S. J. Williams
I’m of the generation for which Habitat was a breath of fresh air in design, most particularly interior design and put a sense of contemporary style within the grasp of the wider public than had been possible before. aspirational but achievable.
The book is an interesting browse with lots of illustrations of Conran’s designs and design projects – he has had more fingers in more pies than is anatomically possible – and he is understandably proud of his achievements, though as another reviewer has implied, he comes across as being more than a little self satisfied, with hyperbole forever hovering around his estimation of his impact and achievements. He has been a great positive influence, but somehow it’s more appealing if others say it than if he reminds us constantly.
It would be a great irony if a designer produced a poorly designed book, and there is no real danger of that here, except the text heavy, biographical sections are printed black on orange paper: though this gives the edges of the book an attractively stratified look and finding the life story sections easier, it really does hamper legibility, for this reader at least. It IS readable, but not a comfortable read. Surely functionality is the very first priority of good design. But as these sections are the less attractive of the book, perhaps this is no great impediment.
I enjoyed looking through this book and it would be interesting to borrow from a library. But would I buy it, especially at this price?
No.