The line will debut at this year?s Milan Design Week ?I don?t start with the idea; I start with the process,? says the Los Angeles-based industrial designer Jonathan Olivares. ?So I?m always surprised when the idea takes shape. The last thing I want to do is to be sitting at my desk coming up with big ideas.?
This research-based, incremental approach?which brings to mind the Charles Eames directive to ?innovate as a last resort??has made Olivares?s career trajectory different from those of other young designers. (He turns 37 this year.) Rather than producing a steady stream of products, Olivares has designed just a handful.
These include an aluminum stacking chair for Knoll, and a small, versatile steel cart for the iconic Italian company Danese that won the prestigious Compasso d?Oro in 2011. His three books include A Taxonomy of Office Chairs (which is just what is sounds like); Richard Sapper, based on a series of Hitchcock/Truffaut-style interviews with the late German design master; and Jonathan Olivares Selected Works, a 2017 overview of his work. In it are a number of his essays, both broad and specific, on the nature of design, and projects like the Vitra Workspace, a showroom and learning environment (with the architect Pernilla Ohrstedt) at that company?s headquarters.
The book also includes exhibitions like Source Material?a look at the objects that inspired a broad spectrum of designers?which he co-curated in 2014 with revered industrial designer Jasper...