F: Is for & Fork

Publicist extraordinaire Laura Rubin and her partner Desta invited me to the Thom Bar located inside the Thompson Hotel for the release of the new book "& Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Good Designs". Published by Phaidon this is the follow up to the extremely successful SPOON. AND FORK features 1,000 color illustrations of hundreds of innovative products created by the most forward-thinking young designers today and weighs in at 8lbs. Not only will this look good on your coffee table but you can use it to exercise flabby arms. Considering this is a part of my body that needs attention right away I was a fan. This book will be an indispensable reference for students, designers, architects and the general public interested in design and where it is headed. Easy to flip through each designer is in alphabetical order, and is allotted four pages that include photographs, curator explanations on the whys their works will have a significant impact and influence young designers.

Here's a list of my favorites:

Yves Behar/Fuse Projects/San Francisco this 37-year-old designer has Nike's vice president stating "he's a fantastic design force . . . [who's] about to explode onto the world scene." His futuristic vision is in his new design for the Toshiba laptop. Done in a red lacquer, it opens, revealing a sleek, ultra thin computer that's been buffed a metallic silver. Employing a collapsible hinge, the Transformer's 17-inch screen extends up and out toward the user, turning the computer into a flat-screen TV. "I had the idea of an envelope," he explains. Behar envisions a future in which technology can be present when we want it to be--and invisible when we choose to be free of it. His designs are driven by emotion and a desire to connect. Behar's growing body of work is so distinctive that he is being honored with a solo exhibition (running through October 3) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jennifer Carpenter/Truck Product Architecture/New York I love her designs because it allows kids to construct their own tables, step stools and benches. "It gives them an ownership of the piece. Realizing that kids' stuff spills into the adult areas, her pieces have to appeal to grown-ups. "I heard that someone was using our Friend Bench as a television stand, and I loved that." TRUCK Product Architecture also designs for the home's surfaces. Table, Floor, Wall, Ceiling. They view their work as architecture. They want to bring pleasure to the home through design that is both straightforward and unexpected. www.the-truck.com

Paul Cocksedge/London is the rising star of lighting design at 29. He creates visually spectacular and technically ingenious lights that celebrate the magical and transformative qualities of illumination. He uses polystyrene vending machine cups or exquisite hand-made glass, Paul Cocksedge designs lights in surreal sculptural form. His work was shown at the Design Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum and was one of the four designers nominated for the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year prize in 2004.

Simon Heijdens/Rotterdam has designed the coolest thing ever...moving wall paper. For an ADD brain and someone who has a hard time sleeping this sound like the most interesting way to pass time and stay creatively stimulated. Tomorrow he starts an exhibition at Milk Galleries located at 450 West 15th. Heijdens studied experimental film in Berlin before enrolling at the Eindhoven Academy, where he began to work in design. The influential Dutch design group droog® selected Moving Wallpaper, one of Heijden’s graduation projects, for its collection and then invited him to contribute to a series of international exhibitions.

Patrick Jouin/Paris
My mom once did a painting that is very reminiscent of Jouin's work. It was hypnotic and I remember her painting it. Besides the piece that made me choose him he creates stereo-lithography furniture. Through a process known as 3D layering that makes his new furniture truly inspiring.

These are just 5 of a 100 new designs that are sure to fascinate anyone with an imagination and or a brain. Thank-you Laura, Desta and Phaidon for a truly wonderful book and night and that is a F.A.C.T.