Grain - Inspiration for Designers in Alternative Materials
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin
on 04.15.06

Our generation already reaps some of the early, perhaps not yet so tragic, implications of non-sustainability. One example is the gorgeous, dense, colorful patterns of natural old-growth wood in a piece of furniture: rather than beautiful collectors' heirlooms, deeply grained woods today symbolize the rape of the environment, unless of course the purchaser has carefully assured (and paid for) the provenance from sources such as reclaimed railroad trestles or recovered sunken logs, or perhaps discovered a designer working with reclaimed wood. "Grain" offers designers inspiration to apply wood-grain patterns in unique and original ways...
The softcover book offers a hundred wood grain patterns in 8.5" x 8.5" format (21.25 x 21.25 cm), while the accompanying CD-rom provides royalty-free use of the treasure. The book (US$48.99, Japanese/English) appears to be perpetually out of stock at youworkforthem.com, but youworkforthem is reported to be very friendly about emailing prospective customers as soon as the book is on hand again. Take a look at the source site of this article for a few (K)novel applications in items which are (K)not wood!
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