I took out the book 50 Designers You Must Know by Prestel Books recently. I must admit I have a passion for all things design - architecture, product design, interior design etc. This book deals mostly with product/furniture design.
I'd like to highlight some of the designers in the book that I admire. I'll type in the first paragraph of the description in the book about them as well.
1. Michael Thonet, 1796-1971. Around 1830, Michael Thonet began to experiment with a new process that permitted him to bend laminated wood and later even solid beech-wood rods into curved shapes using steam and pressure. With the bentwood, he broke new ground in design during the mechanical and industrial age.
2. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 1886-1969. As a leading representative of the International Style, Ludwig Mieds van der Rohe dedicated himself to modernity in both his architecture and his furniture designs, and he experimented with the latest technologies. His target group was the modern city dweller and, in contrast to many of his contemporaries, he was less concerned with mass production and social housing construction, focusing instead more on technology-based design combined with quality and elegance. True to his principle of "less is more," he created modern design classics with the Barcelona chair and the Brno chair, which still enjoy cult status today.
3. Le Corbusier (born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris), 1887-1965. Modern design and modern architecture are synonymous with the name Le Corbusier. It was during study tours from 1907 to 1911 and whilst working in well-known architecture agencies in Vienna, Berlin and Paris that the young Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris acquired the basic knowledge that would subsequently make him one of the most renowned architects, urban planners and designer. As early as 1914, he succeeded in designing a skeletal system in reinforced concrete that made it possible to build multistory construction with ready-made individual concrete parts. In 1917, he settled in Paris. As it was not yet the right time for his architectural ideas, he devoted himself to painting and published the journal L'Esprit Nouveau. From 1920 on, he presented his avant-garde architectural concepts in this journal and used the pseudonym Le Corbusier for the first time, which he chose in memory of this grandfather (Lecorbésier).
4. Raymond Loewy, 1893-1986. In 1919, the Frenchman emigrated to the U.S., where he first worked as a window dresser for New York department stores and as a fashion designer for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair. His career change came ten years later when the British office furniture manufacturer Gestetner commissioned him to create a new design for one of their copying machines within a few days. Loewy used plasticine to create the prototype of a new elegant cover for the machine, which subsequently became a best seller. He had thus discovered a completely new approach, which he continued to use for a number of diverse industrial mass products: whether it was a kitchen appliance or an automobile, most of the less attractive mechanical parts were hidden beneath an elegant, modern exterior. Today, product design is a matter of course, but in the 1930s, this was a radical new way of thinking. For Loewy, the potential of his ideas was apparent immediately: "Between two products equal in price, function and quality, the one with the most attractive exterior will win."
5. Alvar Aalto, 1898-1976. (3rd paragraph) The focus of all of his designs was always functionality, albeit a functionality that nevertheless radiated comfort. So, quite in contrast to his design colleagues from Germany and Italy, he used natural materials instead of glass and steel. The typically soft, often irregular shapes, such as waves and folds, also became symbols for the move toward a more human functionalism.
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