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Copying is the way design works || Matthew Ström: designer & developer

matthewstrom.com · 4,969 words · saved by 2 readers

To buy furniture in 1950, you had to choose between affordable and enduring, between rugged and fashionable. Charles and Ray designed a chair that was all the above and sold it for $20.95.2 They called it the LCW.3 The LCW embodies the Eames’ obsession with simplicity in material and method. “We want to make the best for the most for the least,” they said.4 The design was revolutionary: in 1999, Time magazine called the LCW “the best design of the century.”5 Today, you can buy a brand new LCW from Herman Miller (the officially licensed manufacturer of Eames products) for $1,195. Or, you can buy a chair called the “Fathom” from a company called Modway for $145. Functionally and aesthetically, the chairs are identical. There’s an LCW from 1946 in MOMA’s collection. It’s one of the very first ever made. Most people would call it the original LCW. Charles and Ray Eames sold the manufacturing rights for their furniture to Herman Miller in 1947. Collectors call the LCWs made in the ’40s and

Copying is the way design works || Matt Ström-Awn: designer & developer (is the way design works) This is a very short book about copying. Its contents, unless otherwise noted, are licensed under CC-BY SA 4.0 (more on that in a bit). You can download, copy, remix, excerpt, change, and repost it however you see fit. I Charles Eames said it best: “We don’t do ‘art’ — we solve problems.” 1 To buy furniture in 1950, you had to choose between affordable and enduring, between rugged and fashionable. Charles and Ray designed a chair that was all the above and sold it for $20.95. 2 They called it the

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