On Design _ The Magic Language of Things

With a trailblazing career that spans more than seventy-five years and continues to this day, with recent creations that include a Martini glass featured in Bombay Sapphire ads and vases for Klein-Reid, Eva Zeisel stands at the forefront of modern designers. Her works are a reflection of a profoundly independent vision and are featured in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

In this lavishly illustrated, full-color book, the designer for the first time communicates the ideas that have guided and inspired her. Each aspect of the design process is analyzed—variety, spontaneity, line, contour, shading, and texture, among others—to show how the best works are the result of a dialogue between creator and object, the result of which is an environment that is pleasurable, comfortable, and elegant. The language in which this dialogue is conducted, "the language of things," is one in which Zeisel’s fluency is unparalleled, and her thoughts, read alongside the photos of her stunning creations and those that have inspired her, make this book indispensable to every enthusiast of art, ceramics, and design.

Born in Budapest in l906, Eva Zeisel emigrated to the United States in 1938, after having designed glass and pottery for factories in Berlin, Hamburg, and Russia. Among her many awards and honors, she has received a senior award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was the subject of a touring exhibition sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs.