Word: graveses
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When renowned architect Michael Graves was asked over lunch two years ago whether he might want to design a line of home products for a discount-store chain, he paused. Ron Johnson, who runs the home-decor division for Target, suggested Graves stroll one of the company's 800 or...
Graves, nevertheless, wasn't too stuck up to ink a deal with Target, for whom he has designed everything from funky spatulas ($3.99) to patio-furniture sets ($499). Not surprisingly, his Target toaster was a silver-place winner at this year's Industrial Design Excellence Awards.
Call it commodity chic. Marketers of watches and desk chairs, lawn sets and household tools are courting the world's top artists in a bid to make design a critical selling point. Like Graves, architect Philippe Starck is busy putting his mark of conceptual brilliance on a lineup of bathroom...
To an extent, today's frenetic cross-fertilization in the industrial-design world is nothing new. As Graves points out, architects from Michelangelo to Frank Lloyd Wright have designed candlesticks as well as cathedrals. Never before, though, has there been such competition to define consumers' lifestyles. "There's a feeling...
Critics warn that the commercial connection will cheapen the artistic integrity of many designs. But the designers argue that the trend is much more important, that the opportunity to work in different disciplines helps develop talent and refine their artistic sense. And in any case, every commission presents an opportunity...