Marc Newson- Yay or Nae?

Marc Newson apparently the ‘hottest designer on the planet’ describes himself as an ‘obsessed geek’. He has designed everything and anything from the highly functional to the completely non-functional but the question is- is this good design?

One of his designs, best described as a sculpture rather than a functioning piece of furniture due to the unfortunate fact its forbidden to be sat on, is the most expensive piece of furniture to be sold by any living designer ……..EVER. So surely this means Newson is a pretty hot designer? Or is it perhaps pretentious, inaccessible art work?

To understand his designs I started thinking about what drives Marc Newson. He explained that he designs through anger and frustration of the way current products function. This mantra directly translates to his more functional and technical work: his refreshing take on car design for Ford and his Qantas airbus project to name a couple. These designs I believe are both functional and beautiful and are a class of his work which I completely appreciate and find inspiring.

On the other hand I believe Newson’s less functional designs are driven by a completely different line of thought. It cannot be anger and frustration with the functionality of the current chairs on the market that spurred on his design for the ‘lockheed lounge’ chair. Now I’m no expert designer but I have sat on a fair few chairs in my time and I would say almost all of them were more functional that that one.

His obsession with space travel, his design of the space plane, his ‘sexy’ chairs, extortionate vibrator design along with his $200,000 nickle surf board he said was designed almost as a ‘dare’ from a friend, show a different side to Newson. Is he just an ambitious and excited ‘lad’ with too much money and resource on his hands? Are these designs just him showing off to his other lad pals? And more importantly is this sustainable design? And is sustainability vital to the definition of good design? These days perhaps yes.

It seems in the design world everyone has an opinion on Marc Newson: and mine? Despite my seemingly negative take on it I can’t help but feel a little enthralled by Newson. I’m fascinated by his passion, the way he completely immerses himself in projects and his amazing attention to detail. He is exactly as he describes himself- an obsessed geek. So is this good design? I’m sure the debate could go on forever but just so you know Marc, you get a ‘yay’ from me.