Edited by Camilla Belton, Robert Violette. Text by Tom Dixon.
Dixonary is a comprehensive book on one of Britain’s best-known and most highly regarded product designers. In his own words, and with hundreds of comparative illustrations interleaved with text, this self-taught designer illuminates the often surprising ideas behind his finished pieces. Dixon transforms notions of plumpness observed in a painting of an overfed sow into an overstuffed sofa; or gigantic concrete sea defences on the coast of Japan become the distinctive shape of his famous stacked Jack Light. Dixonary is, in Dixon’s words, “a simple picture book with short ‘stories’ attached--stories that present in an ordered and bite-sized way an approximately chronological sweep through the last three decades of topics and techniques that interest me and the things I have made.” A child of the punk era, Dixon (born 1959) founded his own studio in the 1980s following his discovery of the pleasures of welding while repairing damaged motorcycle frames. He became Head of Design at Habitat in 1998 before reestablishing his own brand, Tom Dixon––a lighting and furniture design and manufacturing company––in 2002. He has also been Creative Director at Artek, the Finnish furniture company founded by Alvar and Aino Aalto.
Featured image, of Tom Dixon's 1992 Pylon Chair, is reproduced from Tom Dixon: Dixonary.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Wallpaper.com
Jonathan Bell
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.
ELLEDECOR.COM
Peter TERZIAN
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.
Town & Country
Mark Rozzo
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.
AZURE
Tory Healy
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.
Bookforum
Christopher Lyon
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.
Connecticut Cottages & Gardens
Mary Fitzgerald
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.
Featured image—of Tom Dixon's 2004 "Mirror-Ball Stand"—is reproduced from Dixonary, Violette Editions' deluxe new monograph on the celebrated UK product designer. Throughout the book, Dixon pairs his own designs with images of the objects, animals and ideas that inspired them, alongside idiosyncratic explanatory texts. For example, "The extreme rough-and-tumble of the music business is the inspiration for these adjustable and adaptable tripods, made to hold a multiplicity of lamps of different sizes in different layouts and to allow for realignment in angle and orientation. Imagine a drummer on the road with a band. There’s the constant erecting and disassembling of components and the relentless, heavy pounding of rock ’n’ roll drumming. Drum kits need to adapt to all types of playing techniques and body sizes—so the kit components themselves are a masterclass in heavyweight, long-lasting adjustability." continue to blog
Thursday, February 27 at 6PM, ARTBOOK | D.A.P., Garde and Twentieth Gallery invite you to a special evening with the British designer Tom Dixon. Join us for cocktails, Q&A and a booksigning. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 6 x 8.25 in. / 632 pgs / 312 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $49.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $67.5 ISBN: 9781900828420 PUBLISHER: Violette Editions AVAILABLE: 9/30/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Violette Editions. Edited by Camilla Belton, Robert Violette. Text by Tom Dixon.
Dixonary is a comprehensive book on one of Britain’s best-known and most highly regarded product designers. In his own words, and with hundreds of comparative illustrations interleaved with text, this self-taught designer illuminates the often surprising ideas behind his finished pieces. Dixon transforms notions of plumpness observed in a painting of an overfed sow into an overstuffed sofa; or gigantic concrete sea defences on the coast of Japan become the distinctive shape of his famous stacked Jack Light. Dixonary is, in Dixon’s words, “a simple picture book with short ‘stories’ attached--stories that present in an ordered and bite-sized way an approximately chronological sweep through the last three decades of topics and techniques that interest me and the things I have made.” A child of the punk era, Dixon (born 1959) founded his own studio in the 1980s following his discovery of the pleasures of welding while repairing damaged motorcycle frames. He became Head of Design at Habitat in 1998 before reestablishing his own brand, Tom Dixon––a lighting and furniture design and manufacturing company––in 2002. He has also been Creative Director at Artek, the Finnish furniture company founded by Alvar and Aino Aalto.
