Eames: Beautiful Details

Renowned designers Charles and Ray Eames are amongst the greatest designers of the 20th century. They are, of course, most well known for their groundbreaking and iconic furniture designs, but they also created important, creative, experimental, and beautiful work in the areas of architecture, exhibit design, textile design, product design, graphic design, toy design, film, and photography. Their distinctly postwar American enthusiasm and openness to the world around them gave them free license to explore work in many disciplines. This book celebrates the seamlessness and fluidity in which they operated as both a husband-and-wife team and as designers unrestricted by traditional professional boundaries. They brought a sense of innocence and playfulness to the design process, as well as a tremendous love and discipline in all they created in many different fields and mediums. Augmenting the abundant visual images are quotes and essays by the Eames family, including: Charles and Ray Eames, Lucia Eames, Carla Hartman, Byron Atwood, Lucia Dewey Atwood, Eames Demetrios, and Llisa Demetrios. Unlike any other book published on the Eameses before, this unique and sumptuous monograph is a visual celebration of their work and their life and is destined to become a collector's item. The packaging design of the slipcase is a pattern inspired by the triangles and colors of one of their most inventive, if lesser known designs for children called simply "the toy." It also pays homage to the patterns they used on their well-loved House of Cards. The Eameses brought a sense of humor and joy to everything they created, and the design and layout of this book aims to convey that spirit in a visual feast for the eyes. Select details of their life and work from their refined designs to their innovative experiments, and even including images depicting the everyday poetic moments of their life, are shared here in this exhibit within a book. Inspired by Charles's immersive and original slideshows, in which he expertly selected and grouped images together that communicated information in an aesthetic, direct, and accessible way, this book strives to visually celebrate the Eameses life and work by taking the viewer through a delightful journey focusing on their "beautiful details."