On the Cutting Edge of Design

& Fork, the sequel to Phaidon's influential coffee-table tome Spoon offers a look at 100 of the design stars of tomorrow

by Reena Jana

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The user-friendly, best-selling iPod, created by Jonathan Ive and the design team at Apple (AAPL), is today's go-to example of how elegant design can fuel a powerful business. With business placing more emphasis on design strategy and more companies prowling top art schools for graduates, however, it can be challenging for corporations to find fresh, forward-thinking talent capable of creating the next iPod.

A new book, & Fork (to be released in May by Phaidon), offers an intriguing design resource for businesses. The heavy, oversized volume features 100 young industrial designers, chosen by 10 of the world's foremost authorities on contemporary design, ranging from magazine editors such as Julie Lasky, editor-in-chief of New York-based I.D., to such leading designers as London-based Tom Dixon.

But why should executives pay attention to an artsy coffee-table book such as & Fork? The tome's predecessor, Spoon (get it?), published in 2002, also featured 100 young designers, many of whom went on to become well-known, even iconic design stars—such as Apple's Ive; Hella Jongerius, later tapped by IKEA to create home accessories; Konstantin Grcic, recruited by Braun to design kitchen appliances; and Marc Newson, who became creative director of Qantas Airlines and designed goods for Dom Perignon and Samsonite.

Phaidon editor Emilia Terragni used the same formula for & Fork to predict design stars of the near future. Today, Spoon reads like a Who's Who of contemporary industrial design, while & Fork reads like a Who's Next, although it does feature a couple of established designers, such as San Francisco-based Yves Béhar, who has already worked with Toshiba and Nike (NKE) on high-profile projects, and New York's Antenna Design, which created JetBlue's (JBLU) check-in kiosks and a PC for Fujitsu.

Art vs. Commerce

The 100 designers chosen for & Fork are "a very versatile crew made up of original thinkers," writes I.D.'s Lasky in an e-mail. "I think corporations would do well to snap up their ideas (with appropriate compensation)," he adds.

Some of the designers create pieces that seem more like thought-provoking sculptures for a hip art gallery than practical products soon to be found on store shelves. These include Iron Chair X, a 2006 furniture prototype by Seoul-based Jackson Hong, a former product designer for Samsung Motors. The chair features eight sharp spikes on the seat and back to prevent someone from making him or herself too comfortable.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are familiar-looking, ultra-commercial designs such as the sleek home-theater systems by Yun-je Kang, creative director of Samsung Electronics' audio-visual cluster design team. Although these two designers have worked with a major Asian corporation, they aren't household names globally. And international businesses and design managers can benefit from the juxtaposition of provocative personal design with consumer-oriented products.

Getting Squiggly With It

The book is also a survey of new materials and processes with which these young, relatively unknown designers (mainly in their 30s and early 40s) are experimenting. One spread features outdoor furniture by Dutch designer Ineke Hans (chosen by Didier Krzentowski, owner of the Paris design emporium Galerie Kreo). The chairs and tables are 100% made from plastic found along canals in the Netherlands that has been recycled and are resistant to outdoor elements such as wind and sun.

And members the Swedish design group FRONT (selected by Francesca Picchi, editor of Italian design magazine Domus), use motion-capture software and hardware to record their hand gestures sketching out life-size chairs, tables, and lamps, for their project "Sketch Furniture" (2005).