David Mellor

“David Mellor …was the outstanding British flatware designer of the last century and a remarkable man who … understood, and insisted upon, the essential relationship between making things and designing them” Stephen Bayley, The Guardian “Britains’s most serious, modest and greatest post-war product designer” Sir Terence Conran
David

Mellor: Design is an introduction to the designer, his works and his importance within the British design landscape, post 1950. The wider world knows him for his cutlery, which although exquisite and important, is the tip of the iceberg. To see Mellor as ‘just’ a cutlery designer is to miss his depth: his love of public projects, street furniture or Church commissions. But then to see Mellor as ‘just’ a designer is to miss his influence as a patron of architecture, or his passion for retailing and promoting British crafts. He may be the ‘King of cutlery’ but that is just the beginning. David Mellor (1930-2009) began his career at the RCA, developing sophisticated yet simple aesthetics which he displayed through his silver smithing. His cutlery continued in the Sheffield tradition whilst using some technologically advanced manufacturing methods and radically modern designs. He also designed public street furniture in the 50s and 60s which pulled Britain’s streets into the modern era. During the late 1960s he opened a shop in Sloane Square, London. His work as a retailer helped introduce the highest professional design standards into our equipment for cooking with and eating with. It followed the trail led by Elizabeth David, introducing continental cuisine to the country, a development that today seems so natural. Beautifully and comprehensively illustrated, this book opens up the wonderful work of David Mellor to a wider audience. The Design series is the winner of the Brand/Series Identity Category at the British Book Design and Production Awards 2009, judges said: “A series of books about design, they had to be good and these are. The branding is consistent, there is a good use of typography and the covers are superb.” Also available: Claud Lovat Fraser ISBN: 9781851496631 GPO ISBN: 9781851495962 Peter Blake ISBN: 9781851496181 FHK Henrion ISBN: 9781851496327 David Gentleman ISBN: 9781851495955 E.McKnight Kauffer ISBN: 9781851495207 Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious ISBN: 9781851495009 El Lissitzky ISBN: 9781851496198 Festival of Britain 1951 ISBN: 9781851495337 Harold Curwen & Oliver Simon: Curwen Press ISBN: 9781851495719 Jan Le Witt and George Him ISBN: 9781851495665 Paul Nash and John Nash ISBN: 9781851495191 Rodchenko ISBN: 9781851495917 Abram Games ISBN: 9781851496778