Marc Newson

We need a word for loving something you have always hated, but loving it for that reason. That word for me is Marc Newson. He has some greatest hits for sure, that go beyond the irony-aesthete in me: like the Apple Watch, his OC1 concept car, or his Gluon swivel chair.

But when I show people his other work they almost look past it. His design has become such a pervasive style in our lives it's the normative expression of every industrially designed product today: pastel, soft touch plastic, patternless fabric, semi-organic curves. But the strange thing is we are not living in a design utopia. Instead our aesthetic nature these days feels more atomised than ever. Every product, every fashion feels eclectic, but in the bad way like the second cutlery drawer feels. Take a look at these office chairs. Do they inspire a kind of aesthetic optimism as the designs above do? Do they imbed themselves into an imagined lifestyle, in the way a cowboy boot makes you want to ride a hose or an orb chair makes you think about living in space. Maybe they do, but all I think about is the managers office behind some fast food kitchen with one of these in it. It doesn't give me aesthetic optimism or speak to an aesthetic ideal, it gives me we decided to renovate this space with non-controversial blandness vibes. 

I feel like I've sat in and seen these 1000 times. Never have I stoped and said "yeah, nice design". I just look past it as an artefact of the time I live in. More junk that will be replaced in a different style; this year matt black, next year silver, the year after fake brass. Will I look back to this era with roses in my eyes and see only the things I am nostalgic for? Likely. Do I feel any more hopeful that design will once again achieve the kind of universal resolve it did in the 1890s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1990s, 2000s? Maybe all I will remember from the 2020s is Kanye shoes, san serif logos, and foldable phones, and think "those were the days when people knew how to design!"