100% Design

100% Design – Cent Magazine

Amos Marchant
My design classic of the last 20 years is the ‘Lem’ stool designed by Shin and Tomoko Azumi for Lapalma, 2000. It is an elegant piece of minimalist design with a beautiful line described by the section that wraps around the seat looping down to provide a footrest. Its simplicity is seductive and commercially spot-on. Ubiquitous, much copied but yet to be improved on – definitely a true classic.

The product I would like to nominate as a future classic is the ‘Folding Boat’ designed by Max Frommeld and Arno Mathies for Maarno, 2011. It is a boat that is constructed from a single sheet of plastic and folds flat making it extremely economic and compact. With the climatic challenges the world faces in the future, I have a feeling this product is yet to reach its potential – a future classic for the changing world.

Ella Doran
My future design classic … there are many, but sticking with the ‘lighting’ theme, it has to be the Plumen bulb 01. Why? Because of the speed at which they have covered the market place, their ingenuity in challenging the obvious, and how they are now continuing their pledge for other options with their Plumen 002 that they ran through Kickstarter earlier in the year. This to me is the future in ‘action’, as it is the most creative and empowering (and often the most financially viable) way to get a product to market!

Matthew Hilton
A design classic of the last 20 years, a really significant design I am afraid it is the same as everyone, but the Imac or Iphone, because it has been so so important in helping people understand how important good clear well thought through design is, and how it influences and changes our lives, the rise of Apple as a motor for design and corresponding huge development in use of the internet and computer controlled manufacture, all this is absolutely fundamental world changing stuff and Apple is the company which has become the embodiment of good product and graphic and software design in that period, every single aspect of their product output is obsessively designed, apart maybe from their environmental impact, this has got to change now and will do so but I think it will take another shift, a different company or global governmental shift or huge proportions to truly move the environmental aspects.

Naomi Clever
I think that it’s got to be Tom Dixon’s collection of mirrored globe pendants. Perfect and now ubiquitous.



For future design classic, again it’s lighting for me and it’s Terence Woodgate’s brilliant and beautiful range of ceiling lights called Solid, in a variety of materials. Again, perfect, simple, very well priced and sounding the death knell for rooms with just too many damn downlighters.

Paul Newman – Case
1. What is your design classic from the last 20 years?
I am very fond of the Porsche 911 designed in 1963 which has been in continuous production and updated every 10-20 years until the latest version, the 991, from 2011. The car was named fifth in the ‘Car of the Century’ award and after more than 50 years is still one of the oldest sports coupe nameplates.

2. What is your future classic?
I’ve worked closely with Shin Azumi on many products for Case Furniture and have always loved his approached to design. The simplicity and attention to detail is something I highly respect. For that reason, I would put forward the Lem Stool by Shin and Tomoko Azumi as a future design classic.