Hasta La Ideas

Phaidon’s new monograph of Hella Jongerius, Misfit, is a text and photographic extension of her love of “misfit” products that defy appearances of mass production despite being mass produced. Its quirks are apparent from right off of the bat, from the non-traditional binding to the transparent shapes on the cover that the user can employ to “customize” the cover image vase. We immediately turned the vase into a “bug” by deploying the transparencies as “wings.” Even the simple line-drawn vase on the cover has depth, which isn’t immediately apparent until you touch it. Like enamel on a vase, the lines have weight and are echoed in the string used to hold the book together.

The unorthodox design is beautiful, but whether you’re a reviewer hellbent on viewing absolutely every page or you’re simply a coffee table book-lover, the binding makes the pages slightly hard to turn. Even so, you’ll want to see the work on each page, because it’s lovely. Perhaps the difficult pages are simply the cost of interacting with beauty. The cover is basically a version of her “Coloured Vases,” but we were particularly knocked out by her larger scale furniture and intrigued by the level of insight and detail the book provides on her process. Irma Boom’s layout is visually striking and includes several “conversations that might have taken place” with design luminaries such Louise Schouwenberg, Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawthorn. We’re glad that apparently they actually did take place because through those interviews readers can find that Jongerius follows her philosophy in craftsmanship in her own life.

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