Minimal aesthetic and innovative approach are hallmarks of contemporary Nordic designers. Creating pieces of simplistic elegance is meant to reflect the quality of light in the northern hemisphere, resulting in clean, modern furniture decorating the homes of the region’s most stylish residents. The book New Nordic Design is a comprehensive guide to Nordic designers practicing today.
Danish author, fashion stylist, writer and photographer Dorothea Gundtoft currently manages ND-WORLD.COM, and was Stylist of the Year at the Elite Style Awards in 2013, and has been nominated twice again in 2014 and 2015. She also received a ‘New Generation Award’ nomination by Vogue UK. In addition to the book New Nordic Design, she has written Fashion Scandinavia, also published by the leading art & design publisher Thames & Hudson. She grew up in southern Spain and is now based between London and Paris.
The book celebrates the impact of contemporary Nordic style on interiors, furnishings and product design and is, according to the magazine American Craft “a must for anyone looking to expand their understanding of the Scandinavian influence on global handmade and industrial design marketplaces”.
New Nordic Design features fifty notable interior and product designers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland, and demonstrates the attention to detail and the high quality of materials that have long been associated with Scandinavian design.
The book is also a source of minimalistic inspiration, and the format is interesting in that it adopts features of on-line magazines with short self-contained entries. The main section of the book take the form of a question and answer dialogs with twenty international commentators, placing the fifty designers and architects in a global context.
Many of the designers talk about the importance of being physically close to the sea or to countryside. Lars Beller Fjetland, living in Bergen, actually goes as far as to explain that “there is less visual noise that tends to clutter my mind.”
A tag cloud inside the front cover and the Directory in this book list web sites instead of postal addresses, although this would have made more sense on a digital site where you can click through with a link.
In New Nordic Design, established designers as well as the up and coming all share a passionate commitment to elegant style with widespread international appeal, with great potential to reach a wide, global audience for whom Scandinavian living is a dream and an aspiration.
Available from Amazon and other good retailers
Scandinavian Influence on Global Design, written by Tor Kjolberg
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