' The essence of design is having the imagination and the desire to create something '
Design is everywhere - and that's why looking for a definition may not help you grasp what it is. The Design Council tells us that designers learn that ideas
that may seem strange are worth exploring and that the 'common-sense'
solution is not always the right one.
Designers often hit on counter-intuitive concepts through
methods such as drawing, prototyping, brainstorming and user
testing.
Watching users in real-world situations especially gives
insights into their behaviour that lead to ideas that wouldn't
have formed had the designer simply thought about the situation,
or relied on generalised market research.
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown
Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was born in 1716 and died in 1783, and is the most famous English landscape designer.
Lancelot Brown was born in Northumberland and served an apprenticeship with Sir William Lorraine.
'Capability' Brown designed the gardens at Burton Constable (East Yorks) between 1772 - 1782
Picture © 2004 Burton Constable Foundation |
He moved to Buckinghamshire in 1739 and was employed by Lord Cobham at Stowe in 1741.
This gave Lancelot Brown the opportunity of working with William Kent and John Vanbrugh.
He later practiced as an architect in his own right.
On some occasions Lancelot Brown designed both the house and its park.
In 1764 Brown was appointed Master Gardener at Hampton Court, where his practice expanded rapidly, and he was often away on coach tours.
Many examples of his work are open to the public, and many others are well maintained as golf courses.
Lancelot Brown's nickname 'Capability' came from his fondness for speaking about a country estate having a great 'capability' for improvement.
His popularity reached a peak at the time of his death, then fell into decline, as explained in our online history of English Garden Design since 1650.
Brown's Harewood House gardens near Leeds
Picture © Harewood House |
Lancelot Brown's reputation reached its nadir in the 1880s, then began to recover, and by 1980 he was being recognised as a genius of English garden design.
Lancelot Brown described himself as a 'place-maker', not a 'landscape gardener' and it was the nineteenth century which saw 'landscape gardening' become a trade name.
Click the link to see Brown's garden designs at www.gardenvisit.com.
Coco Chanel
Designer Coco Chanel was born Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel in 1883, although she would often claim that her real date of birth was 1893 - and that she was really ten years younger.
Her place of birth was also something that she sought to disguise.
Chanel No.5, still popular today |
Coco was born in the workhouse where her mother worked, although she asserted that she was born in Auvergne.
Her mother died when she was six years old, leaving her father with five children, who he quickly farmed out to various relatives.
Gabrielle adopted the name Coco during a brief career as a singer in cafes and concert halls, between 1905-08.
Coco became the mistress of a rich military officer, and then a wealthy English industrialist, and the patronage and connections that these men provided her with enabled her to open her own millinery shop in Paris in 1910.
She had soon expanded to Deauville and Biarritz.
Coco Chanel became the first designer to use jersey during the 1920s and her relaxed, mannish clothes for women soon became very popular with clients who were tired of the corseted fashions of previous decades.
In 1922, she launched the fragrance Chanel No. 5, which remains popular to this day.
Two years later Pierre Wertheiner became her partner (taking on 70% of the fragrance business) - and possibly her lover.
Coco launched her signature cardigan jacket in 1925, and the following year matched its success with her little black dress.
The Chanel fashion house is now controlled by designer Karl Lagerfeld, and the 'Little Black Dress' has evolved.
Picture © www.chanel.com |
Both items continue to be a staple part of every Chanel collection.
During World War II, Coco was a nurse, although her post-war popularity was greatly diminished by her affair with a Nazi officer during the conflict.
However, she made her comeback in 1954 - her style much unchanged apart from the introduction of pea jackets and bell-bottoms for women.
During her life, Coco Chanel also designed costumes for the stage, including Cocteau’s 'Antigone' (1923) and 'Oedipus Rex' (1937).
She also designed film costumes for cinematic works such as 'La Regle de Jeu'.
A Broadway musical of her life opened in 1969, with Katharine Hepburn taking the role of Coco.
Coco Chanel worked until her death in 1971.
Text taken from and © www.thebiographychannel.co.uk
Terence Conran
Sir Terence Conran is one of the world's best-known designers.
Good, affordable, modern design - 'Glove' chair by Terrence Conran.
Picture © www.conran.com. |
He founded England's popular home furnishing store, Habitat,
which brought good, affordable, modern design to the general
public.
As a restaurateur, he has changed the face of eating out
in London with his acclaimed restaurants, which include Bidendum,
Quaglino's , Sartoria, and Mezzo.
He opened The Conran Shop on London's Fulham Road in 1973,
and others have since followed in Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo, Fukuoka,
and Melbourne.
In 1989, Sir Terence opened the Design Museum at Butlers
Wharf, the first of its kind in the world.
James Dyson
Dyson DC07 Allergy Hepa Filter blue turquoise upright vacuum cleaner |
British inventor born in 1947.
He is best known as the inventor of the Dyson Dual Cyclone bagless
vacuum cleaner which work on the principle of cyclonic separation.
James Dyson was born to academic parents against what he describes as a "middle class and not particularly wealthy background in the backwater of north Norfolk."
From 1956 to 1965 James attended Gresham's School, Holt, in Norfolk where he gained O-Levels in Latin, Greek, French, English language, English literature, art, mathematics and history, following this with A-levels in ancient history, art and general studies.
The period from 1965 to 1966 he attended Byam Shaw School of Drawing and Painting, Kensington, London, before going on to a place at the Royal College of Art for four years between 1966 and 1970, where he studied furniture design, and then interior design.
James designs and engineers the Sea Truck for inventor Jeremy Fryand and wins a Design Council Award and the 1975 Duke of Edinburgh's special prize.
Dyson's 'Ballbarrow'
Picture © www.dyson.co.uk. |
In 1974 James strikes out on his own to develop the Ballbarrow, and then designs a water-filled plastic garden roller, the Waterolla.
The Ballbarrow wins the Building Design Innovation Award in 1977.
In 1978 James invents the Trolleyball - a boat launcher with ball wheels.
James stumbles across the idea of a bagless cleaner while renovating his country house in the Cotswolds.
Spends five years from 1979 to 1984 developing the cleaner, and builds 5,127 prototypes of the Dual Cyclone(tm) vacuum cleaner.
After attempting to sell his invention to the major manufacturers, Dyson set up his own manufacturing company, which now outsells many of the companies that rejected his idea, becoming one of the most popular brands in the UK.
Some text from and © www.dyson.co.uk
Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen was born in London on March 17th 1969 as the youngest of
six children.
He left school at the age of 16 and was immediately offered
an apprenticeship at the traditional Saville Row tailors Anderson
and Shephard and then at neighbouring Gieves and Hawkes, both
masters in the technical construction of clothing.
Part of McQueen's collection Spring/Summer 2003 |
From there he moved to the theatrical costumiers Angels and
Bermans where he mastered six methods of pattern cutting from
the melodramatic 16th Century to the brutally sharp tailoring
which has become a McQueen signature.
Aged 20 he was employed by the designer Koji Tatsuno who
also had his roots in British tailoring.
A year later McQueen travelled to Milan where he was gainfully
employed as Romeo Gigliâs design assistant.
He finally returned to London in 1994 where he completed
a Masters degree in Fashion Design.
His degree collection was famously bought in its entirety
by Isabella Blow.
Since leaving St. Martins and in less than 10 years McQueen
has become one of the most famous and respected international
fashion designers in the world.
He was named British designer of the Year four times in 1996,
1997, 2001 and 2003.
In October 1996 he was appointed Chief Designer at the French
Haute Couture House Givenchy where he worked until March 2001.
In June 2003 he was awarded international Designer of the
Year by The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)
and in the same month honoured with A Most Excellent Commander
of The British Empire (CBE) by her Majesty the Queen.
For more information about Alexander McQueen please click
here.
Text taken from and © www.alexandermcqueen.net
Phillipe Starck (Starck, Philippe Patrick)
French product, furniture, and interior designer.
Phillipe Starck juicer |
He brought French design to international attention in the 1980s with his innovative and elegant designs, notably those for a room in the Elysée Palace in 1982 and for the Café Costes in Paris in 1984.
The wooden and metal chair he designed for the Café became a huge international success (reproductions numbered over 400,000 in 1990).
Starck also designed the interior of New York’s Royalton Hotel (1988). His high international profile characterized the ‘designer’ decade.
For more information about Phillipe Starck please click here.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was born at the Richland Center, Wisconsin 1867 and died in Taliesin West, Arizona, in 1959.
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect |
He and his family settled in Madison, Wisconsin in 1877, and he was educated at Second Ward School, Madison from 1879 to 1883.
After a brief stint at the University of Wisconsin, where he took some mechanical drawing and basic mathematics courses, Wright departed for Chicago where he spent several months in J. L. Silsbee's office before seeking employment with Adler and Sullivan.
Wright evolved a new concept of interior space in architecture.
Rejecting the existing view of rooms as single-function boxes, Wright created overlapping and interpenetrating rooms with shared spaces.
He designated use areas with screening devices and subtle changes in ceiling heights and created the idea of defined space as opposed to enclosed space.
Through experimentation, Wright developed the idea of the prairie house - a long, low building with hovering planes and horizontal emphasis.
He developed these houses around the basic crucifix, L or T shape and utilized a basic unit system of organisation.
He integrated simple materials such as brick, wood, and plaster into the designs.
In 1914 Wright lost his wife and several members of his household when a servant burned down Taliesin, his home and studio in Wisconsin.
Following the tragedy, he re-directed his architecture toward more solid, protective forms.
Although he produced few works during the 1920s, Wright theoretically began moving in a new direction that would lead to some of his greatest works.
Walter Burley Griffin was among the many notable architects to emerge from the Wright studios.
In 1932 Wright established the Taliesin Fellowship - a group of apprentices who did construction work, domestic chores, and design studies.
Frank Lloyd Wright's drawing for 'Fallingwater', Pennsylvania, USA. |
Four years later, he designed and built both Fallingwater and the Johnson Administration Building.
These designs re-invigorated Wright's career and led to a steady flow of commissions, particularly for lower middle income housing.
Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Fallingwater', Ohiopyle, (Bear Run), Pennsylvania
Click to enlarge. |
Wright responded to the need for low income housing with the Usonian house, a development from his earlier prairie house.
During the last part of his life, Wright produced a wide range of work, particularly important being Taliesin West, a winter retreat and studio he built in Phoenix, Arizona.
He died at Taliesin West in 1959.
Click the link to see more of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs at www.greatbuildings.com.
Text taken from www.greatbuildings.com
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