If you work in design, it’s worth asking yourself a question: how much do you know about the famous designers of modern history: the giants on whose shoulders we all stand? And we’re not just talking about the big names of graphic design like Dieter Rams and Paula Scher. But also those pioneers of product design, industrial design, textile design, furniture design and so on, who’ve shaped the world we know today.
Back in 2023, regular Creative Bloq writer Tom May noticed that there wasn’t a single book that brought all these lumunaries together. And so he set out to write one. And the result has just been launched into the world, in the form of The 50 Greatest Designers: The People Who Have Created Our Environment (Arcturus Publishing) – I think this is heading into our best design books guide.
It’s a richly illustrated coffee table book that explores the architects of modern design. These span multiple disciplines, and the notable names range from Victorian pioneer William Morris to Apple’s Jonathan Ive; Bauhaus textile artist Gunta Stölzl to modernist furniture legend Eileen Gray; logo guru Paul Rand to automotive visionary Giorgetto Giugiaro.
In short, it profiles 50 designers who have fundamentally shaped how we live, work, and interact with our environment. And they aren’t necessarily the names you expect.
Not all names are obvious
The book steps out of the straitjacket of the traditional Western canon to include the likes of Korean typography revolutionary Ahn Sang Soo, Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa, and Chinese contemporary designer Naihan Li.
Precisely half of the names also happen to be female; yet the author stresses that this not tokenism, but as recognition of women’s substantial – yet often overlooked
contributions to design history.
“Once I began my research, there were so many female names I couldn’t leave out; despite being overlooked in their time, or hidden behind male pseudonyms,” Tom explains.
“Without designers like Margaret Calvert or Marianne Straub, the world would look very different to how it does today. And the fact that traditional design reference books have been so male-oriented is an absolute mystery to me.”
Tom, whose previous books include the Amazon bestseller Great Ted Talks: Creativity, spent considerable time researching stories that revealed surprising details about the modern design world’s founders.
“Each profile explores not just what they created, but the historical contexts and often chaotic personal circumstances that shaped their innovations,” he explains. “My book examines how technical breakthroughs merged with aesthetic vision, and how design choices reflected broader cultural movements – from the Arts and Crafts reaction to industrialization through today’s environmental imperative.”
As the design community grapples with questions of representation and environmental responsibility, this book feels very timely. The 50 Greatest Designers demonstrates how design has always been political, from Charlotte Perriand’s mission to make Modernist design accessible to working-class families, to contemporary designers like Hella Jongerius pioneering sustainable practices in textiles, crockery and furniture.
As Tom puts it: “We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants here, so it’s well worth knowing who they were, what they achieved, and how they went about it.”
The 50 Greatest Designers: The People Who Have Created Our Environment is available now from all good online bookstores, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in the US and Amazon.co.uk and Waterstones in the UK.
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