Merger  

This news fills me with no hope or optimism in regards to:

• The continuing creativity of the design industry
• The future of  historic design licenses that exist under this merger
• The continued investment in new designs/designers

I came to write something snarky and realised it was best just to be honest why I wanted to write something snarky.

I agree there appears to be nothing positive from this merger.  On the other hand, has either company produced anything interesting over the past 30 years? Maybe this "Design for Freedom" mask ($30)

Aeron Chair from 1994

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/169418

https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/video-gallery/aeron-remastered-don-chadwick/

Many who revived the 1950s in the 1980s has moved on to collecting other things.  The cutoff time was in 1994 when manufacturers like HM and Knoll decided to cash in the persistence of mid century modernism and reissued many of their discontinued designs from decades ago (to the dismay of many serious collectors).  Unfortunately, there are still others out there who just heard of mid century modern madness yesterday and continues to dig out the past hence the proliferation of reissues, reproductions and worse, unlicensed replicas/knockoffs.

I have yet to see a contemporary designer that could match the design rigor produced by early through mid 20^th century designers even though there are many good designs out there produced by talented contemporary designers, most are just good looking meaningless objects.  Many of what are now considered design classics have transcended through time because their designs were considered ground breaking/ahead of their time, innovative in terms of use of materials, inventive in terms of form and unconventional production techniques.

I remember a memo in the (design) office in early 2001 that anyone who specifies any of the usual suspects (Nelson Bubble lamps, anything Eames or Danish to name a few) in any of the projects, will be fired (not a joke).

I remember a memo in the (design) office in early 2001 that anyone who specifies any of the usual suspects (Nelson Bubble lamps, anything Eames or Danish to name a few) in any of the projects, will be fired (not a joke).

At the risk of sounding entirely pretentious, I couldn't agree more. It becomes as thoughtless as a trip to IKEA.

It's seriously interesting to me you say the Aeron chair, because people are so disgusted by office chairs in interior design and yet to me lots of the Herman Miller designs are actually fairly aesthetically pleasing, because they're honest about why the look the way the do, they are design to work for the 21st century office job.

But it's also shocking because it's the only thing I think I could list, I don't know many other conteporary designers I'd even bat an eyelid at that have their pieces in wider production.

I'd love to design my own furniture too, but I suspect I'd just end up making a facsimile of 20th century generic Danish design too. What is original now? The only things that feels meaningful nowadays are post-modernist designs that I'd never want in my house and therefore probably are more art installations than furniture. I'd love to be there when something pushes us forward again.

“I came to write something snarky and realised it was best just to be honest why I wanted to write something snarky.”               (Kyle Barrett)

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