Life Style - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714845205 ISBN 13: 9780714845203

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2005

Synopsis

Life Style is the first book to document Bruce Mau's creative process and his studio practice, Bruce Mau Design (BMD). Since founding his Toronto-based studio in 1985, Mau has become one of the world's most sought-after designers. He became an international figure following the publication of the groundbreaking and award-winning volume S,M,L,XL, which he designed and co-authored with Dutch architect and recent winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Rem Koolhaas.

Written by Mau and conceived and designed by BMD, Life Style is a collection of playful and critical statements about the visual and cultural trends that influence today's image-driven environment. The book showcases the methodology, philosophy, world view and projects of BMD.

With over 1,000 images and available in a variety of luminous satin covers, each reader can choose his/her colour to match his/her life style.

About this title

Review:

"A 624-page strip tease performed with an endless variety of veils... The book tantalizes readers with glimpses into the thinking of one of the most creative minds at work in design today."―New York Times

"A book form that's partly a journal of ideas, creative anthology, social critique, manifesto for change and a superlative piece of design."―Blueprint

"An insightful and exhilarating analysis of image culture."―Dazed and Confused

"A wide-ranging, fascinating view of the world, it offers hundreds of explanations (or observations) of what we see around us."―Guardian

Synopsis:

Bruce Mau describes his studio as a "multi-disciplinary think tank where designers, artists and architects, curators, filmmakers and writers collaborate ..." In interviews and in his own writings, Mau rarely alludes overtly to nuts-and-bolts design issues such as typography, page design, color, and proportion. Instead, his work critically engages what he calls the "global image economy": a new world order characterized by the impact of sophisticated reproduction technology, the proliferation of logos and printed advertisements, digitally manipulated imagery, celebrity culture, and electronic commerce, among other late-twentieth-century phenomena. This book begins with a one-page text titled "Styling Life: Declaration," which succinctly defines the firm's approach and includes the statement, "Here we accept the accidents, the encounters, the interruptions and the failures of design practice along with its successes and elations." Daily experience and direct engagement with the often unstable world around us inform his work more so than theory; in effect, design for Mau is something one lives -- a life style -- rather than something one does.

Text forms the armature of the book and traverses a variety of subjects germane to contemporary design culture; project documentation is inserted between the essays. The book has a tripartite structure based on the themes Life Theories (essays, credos, declarations), Life Projects (studio work from Bruce Mau Design), and Life Stories (Bruce Mau's personal anecdotes, musings, and reminiscences; memorable moments in his career). The individual texts and project documentation that make up these three sections are interwoven throughout the book instead of falling sequentially in linear fashion. Readers may move, for example, from an essay on typography to a story about meeting John Cage, to a project presentation for Zone Books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0714845205
• ISBN 13: 9780714845203
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 624