Dixonary is "a simple picture book with short 'stories' attached,"
according to author and British product designer Tom Dixon. Here,
Dixon reveals the ideas and influences behind his creative
genius.--Mary Fitzgerald "Connecticut Cottages & Gardens"
With a compact brick of a book called Dixonary, Dixon now ofers a
greatst hits albums between two covers. Having dismissed request
for a biography, catalogue raisonee, or jumbo monographs as " too
pompous, too serious, and far too boring", the puckish designer has
compiled 600 pages of juxtapositions that showcase his own designs
next to images that helped inspire them. A photograph of a
spacewalking astronaut with his mirrored, coppery pendant lamps
that are Dixon's elegant 2005 Copper Shades. [...] Throughout,
Dixon reveals the process and materials behind a three-decade
design practice that is all about process and materials, one that
evolved from provocation to mass production.--Mark Rozzo "Town &
Country"
The masterstroke monograph is something of a designer rite of
passage, with the only surprise being that it took Tom Dixon so
long to chronicle his work in such fine style. Violette Editions is
a worthy publishing partner for Dixon's oeuvre, and Dixonary takes
the reader through a chronology of his work, from product to
architecture to play and beyond, each with revealing insights from
the designer. The evolution of his designs is made even more
evident in the context of a book, where it's interesting to see the
wrought iron Rococo of his earliest work resurface in some of the
highly finished metal lighting and furniture of recent
years.--Jonathan Bell "Wallpaper.com"
Tom Dixon's lighthearted second monograph pairs colour
illustrations and photos of his numerous products with anecdotes
and musings printed on parchment paper. The 614-page hardcover
(Violette Editions) gathers over three decades of work to chronicle
the British designer's career, beginning in the late '70s, when he
played in a rock band by night and learned to weld while rebuilding
motocycles by day. As the book reaches the new millennium and the
launch of his label, pictures of pythons chaises and spiky
chandeliers. Among the copper wastebaskets and glass pendants,
you'll find his thoughts on everything from milking stools to
industrial reconstruction. Dixonary is not a catalogue; it's a
diary.--Tory Healy "AZURE"
Which came first: the chicken or the chicken shaped S-chair? For
Dixionary ( Violette Editions), Tom Dixon's first self-penned
monograph, the British industrial designer came up with the
ingenious idea of displaying each of his creation - not only the
funky and inventive chairs for which he's famous, but also
candelabras, rugs, doorstops, and even a water tower and a
motorized espresso cart - opposite the image or object that
inspired it.--Peter TERZIAN "ELLEDECOR.COM"
With its classy cloth half-binding and alternating pages of coated
paper (for images) and delicate uncoated stock (for text), TOM
DIXON: DIXONARY quickly defeats the initial impression that it's an
overproduced product catalogue. The self-taught Dixon started out
in the early '80s making what could only be called punk chairs,
welded and wired together from scrap metal, before he evolved into
Britain's most resourceful furnishings designers. The
chronologically organized Dixonary juxtaposes each of Dixon's
designs with an image, often fanciful, representing some aspect of
what sparked the idea, from Roxy Paine to bicycle chain, hand
grenade to Gene Krupa's drum it. His breakthrough success, the S
chair, was inspired, he says, by a doodle of a chicken on the back
of a napkin.--Christopher Lyon "Bookforum"
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