Amazon.com description: Product Description: International Design Yearbook 12 presents an international collection of the five major areas of domestic design -- furniture, lighting, tableware, textiles, and products -- created over the past year by both well-known designers and new talent. Internationally acclaimed designer Philippe Starck made this year's selection. Starck's interest in confronting established ideas as much as solving design problems leads him to an innovative and original view of the best design around the world. The challenges of new technology, recycling, and designing for the mass media are just some of the themes highlighted by this year's designs.Starck's selection emphasizes the need to reinvent design -- to reduce the design problem to a solution rather than a form. In addition to focusing on artists with an individual vision, those interested in recycling and reuse, technologists, and others. Starck highlights another category that he terms les anonymes plus -- designs that have minimal forms and decoration and are often meant for the mass market. Their anonymous character makes them appropriate for a wide variety of uses to meet the needs of society today.This volume includes full technical data for each object, designers' biographies, a list of suppliers and their addresses, and an update of design acquisitions at major international museums.