Philippe Starck by Henry Piper

“Whenever we discover an object or a place designed by Philippe Starck, we enter a world of wall-to-wall imagination, surprises and fabulous fantasy.” This is the opening line on his official website in his bibliography. His designs take people into another world in which you would never expect to see. From childhood his parents knew he would be a designer. But Philippe Starck took it a step farther by using a different method from everybody else and becoming one of the best new style designers in the world.

Philippe Starck is a famous French product designer who is considered one of the best-known designers in the new design style. Philippe was born January 18, 1949 in Paris France. When he was younger, he was already a very enthusiastic draughtsman. His father, who worked as an aircraft designer, most likely inspired Philippe to become a product designer. Starck recalls spending his childhood underneath his father’s drawing boards; hours spent sawing, cutting, gluing, sanding, and dismantling bikes, motorcycles, and other objects. He would take apart and put together anything that aroused his curiosity re-making the world around him. He also gained a lot of inspiration from his mother through a poetic vision of the world she gave him. Starck explains this as an approach to life that he calls “panache.” It was his mothers advice he took which led him to attend design at Nissim de Camondo in Paris.

Once completing school, Starck set up his first company in 1968 where he produced inflatable objects. Starck has helped design furniture and other objects for Paris nightclubs. Then in 1979 he founded the Starck Product Company that helped him blossom into the great designer he is now. After all these projects Starck finally struck it big as an interior designer in 1982 when he was responsible for refurbishing many private apartments in Paris for French President Francois Mitterand. Later Philippe Starck’s designs started to show up everywhere in France including hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs. Starck’s great architecture and interior design started to show up in hotels and other places all around the world including Madrid, Japan, and the United States. The most popular buildings by Philippe Starck in the United States are the Paramount and Royalton hotels in New York and the Mondrin Hotel in Los Angeles.

Philippe Starck likes to shake up the traditions and culture of major cities around the world as he strives to establish new classics and designs nobody has ever seen before. In 1984, he designed the famous ‘Costes’ chair for the Café Costes in Paris France. This was the beginning of Starck designing furniture for leading Italian and other International firms. While working for the famous Italian manufacturer Kartell, he created many designs made from polycarbonate plastic. Many of his world famous home furnishing products includes the transparent Louis Ghost chair, ErolSl chair, Bubble Club sofa, and the La Boheme stool. Starck’s products have grown so large that they are now featured on popular American television shows. On the hit T.V series Boston Legal, a pair of Starck’s Bubble Club chairs sits on the balcony outside of main character Denny Crane’s office, where he and Alan Shore (another main character) end each and every episode discussing the events of the episode.

Philippe Starck’s designs continue to grow in the Untied States with his new household products. A couple of Starck’s newest designs include wireless speakers for the iPod and iPhone, an optical mouse, and a clothing line. The new wireless speakers are named the Zikmu’s made by Parrot. They are a great looking speaker which Starck incorporated his new designs style into them. Another recent item he designed was the Optical Mouse for Microsoft. This mouse is a new creative design, which looks very futuristic for the new Microsoft computers. Philippe has recently collaborated with Target stores to present “Starck Reality.” His products are a new collection of more than 50 everyday consumer products with his own touch of modern design. Starck Reality comprises products from five major categories: home, office, kitchen, bath and baby. The merchandise is exclusive to Target and reflects the designer's long-held belief in elevating the joy of a large amount of people that can be found in simple things. Starck enjoys bringing people the most possible joy out of everyday household items.

A reason why Philippe Starck became so popular was his use of the new design style in architecture, everyday household items, and interior designing. The new design style started in the 1980’s. With everybody thinking about the future, designers decided to change the designs of products so that they look more like what people believed things would be like in the future. This has been happening for a while but the new design style can be more of a concept. You see these new design styles on concept cars, clothing, electronics, and many other products.

Philippe has said that when he is thinking about designing a certain product, he asks himself many questions. Some of these questions include; “what would be the effect of the product? What will be the life of this product? What society would the product be used? Will this product bring someone joy?” These questions help him create a new product that will be useful and people will enjoy. “We don’t know what we are going to be in the future, if we don’t integrate, then we don’t evolve as a race and we stop.” Philippe tries to create a different way to see a product and then re-creates it. “If we look from far, we see our line of evolution, our line of evolution is very positive.” He believes, like the evolution of humanity and technology, design evolves as well and he just keeps trying to help these designs evolve in a positive direction. He uses the sense of vision to help design his products. This sense is what helps him achieve his goal of being one of the best designers in the world, and helped him win the CNBC International Property best development, architecture, and interior design award in 2008; plus many more awards throughout his years of being a designer.

Philippe Starck has won many awards and is recognized by in every country as one of the greatest designers in the world. He has grown more popular and better known throughout the United States as well. In 2008, it was announced that Starck would be hosting BBC’s School of Design, a reality show and design competition. Through Starck’s growth as a designer, his design style also grows. The New design style had become the modern and “in” design of all fashion items including architecture, household items, and clothes. As the growth of the new design style continues, Philippe Starck will be a leader and be watched and copied by many new young designers.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1.)
Starck, Philippe. Starck. New York, NY: Universe Pub, 1995.

2.)
Starck, Philippe. “Bibliography of Philippe Starck.”
http://www.starck.com/

3.) “Philippe Starck”
http://www.design-technology.org/starck1.htm

PHOTOS FROM:

www.swotti.com/people/philippe-starck_17202.htm

http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/design/reading_room/42.i_no_longer_wish_to_talk_about_design.1.htm

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/the-philippe-starck-ipod-dock/

http://blog.highfashionhome.com/labels/Interior_Design.html

http://www.designscene.net/2008/05/designer-philippe-starck.html

http://www.digsdigs.com/black-and-white-furniture/

http://www.questodesign.com/shop/images/furniture/kartell/6070_m.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/scrnshots.com/screenshots/4287/PHILIPPE_STARCK.jpg