Author:Alice Rawsthorn
Hello World is Alice Rawsthorn's definitive guide to design and modern life
Design is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. When deployed wisely, it can bring us pleasure, choice, strength, decency and much more. But if its power is abused, the outcome can be wasteful, confusing, humiliating, even dangerous. None of us can avoid being affected by design, whether or not we wish to. It is so ubiquitous that it determines how we feel and what we do, often without our noticing.
Hello World explores design's influence on our lives. Written by the renowned design critic Alice Rawsthorn and designed by the award-winning book designer Irma Boom, it describes how warlords, scientists, farmers, hackers, activists and designers have used design to different ends throughout history: from the macabre symbol invented by 18th century pirates to terrorise their victims into surrender, to one woman's quest for the best possible prosthetic legs and the evolution of the World Cup ball.
At a time when we face colossal changes, unprecedented in their speed, scale and intensity - from the deepening environmental crisis, to giant leaps in science and technology - Hello World explains how design can help us to make sense of them andto turn them to our advantage.
'Hello World is a new book by Alice Rawsthorn, the one and only, the best design critic in the entire world. She keeps the banner of design flying high. Irma Boom designed it, and Irma is simply the best book designer alive' Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
Praise for Alice Rawsthorn's Yves Saint Laurent
'As gripping as a thriller, packed with plot, character and atmosphere' The Times
'Rawsthorn's excellent biography isn't merely a story about clothes, but of crises, comebacks and drug clinics, and as a document of the time it is compulsive' Evening Standard
'The best book I have ever read about the mesmerising cruelty of fashion' The Spectator
'Intelligent and pragmatic... this is a page-turner of a book' New Statesman
'What a story! A skilful interweaving of the artistic, business and emotional life of a great couture house' Mail on Sunday
Alice Rawsthorn is the design critic of the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times. Her weekly Design column is syndicated worldwide. A trustee of Arts Council England and the Whitechapel Gallery in London, she is chair of trustees at the Chisenhale Gallery and the author of an acclaimed biography of Yves Saint Laurent.
Geordie Greig has written a gripping, elegant and original book, shapely and full of unexpected matter. It will surely establish him as a master biographer.
—— V. S. NaipaulGeordie Greig has written an extraordinary, candid book which is at times intensely shocking and at other times even more intensely moving.
—— Antonia FraserInsightful, gossipy, funny, a bit shocking… The most entertaining biography I have read in a long time.
—— Philip Kerr , Daily MailBreakfast with Lucian is a superb, flawlessly crafted portrait of about as messy a life as was ever lived...out of which emerged the greatest British painter of the past one hundred years.
—— Tom WolfeA must for lovers of that extraordinary artist.
—— Sunday TelegraphIts appeal comes from its intimacy.
—— David Robinson , ScotsmanIn this frank memoir, the British journalist Georgie Greig recounts his regular meetings with Freud.
—— ApolloStartlingly frank.
—— Nick Curtis , Evening StandardBoth tender biography and blunt revelation. In that it is the first to reveal the man and the essential symbiosis of heterosexual obsession…with the messy business of painting, it is the most important book yet written on Freud.
—— Brian Sewell , Evening StandardA riveting anecdotal portrait… Everywhere there are fascinating nuggets… A fond, fair-minded, thankfully non-judgmental and pretty full portrait of a person shaped around the people – and most saliently the lovers – who came into his life.
—— Rachel Campbell-Johnston , The TimesGreig has penetrated deep into the labyrinth of Freud’s private life. The result is a gripping page-turner about an endlessly fascinating and extraordinary man.
—— Lynn Barber , Sunday TimesCompelling and fascinating… It is a book fill of clues – generous with routes to an understanding of this massively difficult and hugely gifted individual.
—— William Boyd , Mail on Sunday[It] will be on many an art lover's Christmas list this year.
—— Mary Lussiana , Country & Town HouseFond and faintly disturbing.
—— Nicky Haslam , SpectatorA rattlingly readable effort... Greig does a fine job revealing tales one suspects the artist may have wished to keep private.
—— Alastair Smart , TelegraphAnybody with an ear for a good story, never mind an eye for fine art, will be beguiled.
—— Hephzibah Anderson , Mail on SundayGreig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was answered with great candour and judiciousness… Wry, dry and completely beguiling.
—— William Boyd , Guardian[Greig’s] perceptive observations and eagle’s eye for detail immediately drew me in.
—— Rebecca Wallersteiner , VantageThe Freud who emerges in this account is a slippery figure, not only for journalists who tried to explain him but also for his intimates.
—— New YorkerMr Greig's is a compelling portrait of a complete amoralist who became a monstre sacré.
—— The EconomistGreig’s portrait glimmers with his eye for the telling detail.
—— Robert Collins , Sunday TimesA mesmerising book, seamlessly crafted, totally absorbing, and impossible to put down.
—— The TabletA very readable and enjoyable book, full of salacious detail of the artist and his fascinating life.
—— Julia Weiner , Jewish ChronicleThis intimate biography of Lucian Freud spares no blushes in its account of one of Britain's greatest painters, tracing his life and work through candid revelations about his views on art, relationships and family.
—— Charlotte Mullins , Art QuarterlyBuilding up brush stroke by brush stroke, Greig has produced a three-dimensional study of equal candour. Part demon, part genius, it is an absorbing portrait of the complexity of a strange human character.
—— Peter Lewis , Daily MailAn unapologetic mixture of intelligent perception and high gossip... It is, overall, more revealing than anything about [Freud] yet written.
—— Frances Spalding , GuardianI am captivated by this fascinating memoir... It's an extraordinary read.
—— Barbara Taylor Bradford , Daily MailCandid and intelligent.
—— Spear'sA gripping, page-turning vision of Lucian Freud that penetrates deep into the artist's private life.
—— Sunday Times OnlineUtterly engrossing and lavishly illustrated
—— Mail on Sunday