A richly illustrated and fascinating portrait from two aficionados of Canadian design, and the first major book to identify and document more than fifty years of contemporary product design in Canada. From the radical Project G stereo that every well-appointed, Pop-inspired “bachelor pad” had to have, to the wedge-shaped Contempra phone that quickly convinced homeowners to replace their boring black telephones, Canadian design has entered our homes and shaped our lives. Most of us have sat on one of the ubiquitous moulded plywood chairs that furnish every church basement and Legion, or bought a chromed dome kettle, or marvelled at how a garbage can was elevated to the status of a champagne bucket. For the first time, we can look at these products through the eyes of the designers who created them, and celebrate their achievements. Design in Canada showcases designs that were destined for mass production, and covers everything from popular plastic dishes to refined high-style furniture. The book also features textiles, small appliances and lighting fixtures that have rarely been seen, or, in areas like consumer electronics and ceramics, that have not been as thoroughly documented. The book also explores the movements and influences that have shaped design in Canada through time: from personal artistic challenges to the global juggernaut of modernism and beyond. Whether exploring post-war materials like plastic or aluminum, or finding ways to capture and tame new technology, Canadian designers have worked with imagination, style and an eye to the global market. Magnificently illustrated, with extensive appendices providing a “who’s who” in the world of Canadian design, Design in Canada will be welcomed by everyone who shares an interest in design. Whether you are decorating your home, or are a professional or student involved in industrial, interior or architectural design, you will appreciate this comprehensive reference to more than a half-century of Canada’s rich design heritage.

Design in Canada: Fifty Years From Teakettles to Task Chairs

Arts & Photography

Gotlieb, Rachel

Golden, Cora

History & Criticism

Knopf Canada

A fully illustrated, stylish look back at the story behind a Canadian design icon. For a decade, in the 1960s, Clairtone Sound Corporation captured the spirit of the times: sophisticated, cosmopolitan, liberated. From its modern oiled-walnut and teak stereos to its minimalist logos and promotional materials, Clairtone produced a powerful and enduring body of design work. Founded in 1958 by two young Canadians, Peter Munk and David Gilmour, Clairtone quickly became known for its iconic designs and masterful advertising campaigns. Its acclaimed Project G stereo, with its space-age styling, epitomized the Swinging Sixties. Famously, Hugh Hefner owned a Project G. So did Frank Sinatra. Oscar Peterson affirmed that his music sounded as good on a G as it did live. In 1967, suggesting how deeply Clairtone’s G series had come to be identified with popular culture, the G2 appeared in The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. With 250 illustrations, including previously unpublished drawings, rare film stills, confidential memorandums, and original photography, The Art of Clairtone is a candid and in-depth look at the company’s skyrocketing success — and sensational collapse. Through the recollections of those who knew Clairtone best, from its founders to its designers, engineers, and salesmen, and with comments from Karim Rashid, Douglas Coupland, Tyler Brûlé, and Bruce Mau, among others, this elegant book, published on the 50th anniversary of Clairtone’s launch, celebrates an iconoclastic company that once seemed to represent the promise of Canada.

The Art of Clairtone: The Making of a Design Icon, 1958-1971

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Munk, Nina

Antiques & Collectibles

MCCLELLAND STEWART

This book broadens the discussion of pottery and china in the Victorian era by situating them in the national, imperial, design reform, and domestic debates between 1840 and 1890. Largely ignored in recent scholarship, Ceramics in the Victorian Era: Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature argues that the signification of a pot, a jug, or a tableware pattern can be more fully discerned in written and painted representations.Across five case studies, the book explores a rhetoric and set of conventions that developed within the representation of ceramics, emerging in the late-18th century, and continuing in the Victorian period. Each case study begins with a textual passage exemplifying the outlined theme and closes with an object analysis to demonstrate how the fusing of text, image, and object are critical to attaining the period eye in order to better understand the metaphorical meanings of ceramics.Essential reading not only for ceramics scholars, but also those of material culture, the book mines the rich and diverse archive of Victorian painting and literature, from the avant-garde to the sentimental, from the well-known to the more obscure, to shed light on the at once complex and simple implications of ceramics' agencies at this time.

Ceramics in the Victorian Era: Meanings and Metaphors in Painting and Literature (Material Culture of Art and Design)

Bloomsbury Visual Arts

True Nordic presents a comprehensive look at more than nine decades of Nordic and Scandinavian influence on Canadian craft, design and industrial production. Emphasising durability and truth to materials, the humanistic integrity of Scandinavian and Nordic Modernism resonated culturally with Canada, such as the iconic functionality of Danish designer Arne Jacobsen and the organic simplicity of renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Including essays by the much respected architect and theorist George Baird and founding curator of the Design Exchange, Rachel Gotlieb, contributors to True Nordic share their substantial insight and expertise into how these influences inspired the development of a particular style and the cultural language of Canadian design.

True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada

Kingwell, Mark

Prokopow, Michael

Baird, George

Black Dog Press

Nordique presents a comprehensive look at more than nine decades of Nordic and Scandinavian influence on Canadian craft, design and industrial production. Emphasising durability and truth to materials, the humanistic integrity of Scandinavian and Nordic Modernism resonated culturally with Canada, such as the iconic functionality of Danish designer Arne Jacobsen and the organic simplicity of renowned Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Including essays by the much respected architect and theorist George Baird and founding curator of the Design Exchange, Rachel Gotlieb, contributors to Nordique share their substantial insight and expertise into how these influences inspired the development of a particular style and the cultural language of Canadian design. The French edition of True Nordic.

Nordique: L'influence du design scandinave au Canada (French Edition)

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Books by Gotlieb, Rachel