With expert analysis, great photography, and a huge selection of familiar and unusual objects, this book explains what truly makes a design great and reveals the hidden stories behind the everyday things that surround us.

The author, a writer and journalist specialising in design, has chosen 101 objects that have had a major influence on the world of design history, delving into the makers, the designers, and developments in production and style that made these pieces into design classics. The text incorporates design sketches, portraits of many well-known and some unknown designers, as well as numerous exciting anecdotes from the sewing box of design history.

The selection of designers includes, but is not limited to, legends such as Charles & Ray Eames, Verner Panton, Alexander Girard and other protagonists of classical modernism. Also here are post-war designers such as Finn Juhl, Gilbert Rohde, Pierre Paulin, and Gae Aulenti, and postmodern and contemporary designers such as Philippe Starck, Marcel Wanders, and Konstantin Grcic. This book provides an in-depth and informative overview of 20th-century design - and a glimpse of the first true classic objects of the 21st century.