Newson is unusual in the in the world of famous designers in that he doesn't have a particular style or language running through his work. Dieter Rams, by contrast, has a very specific design philosophy, making his work instantly recognisable. Newson's peices are designed mainly on an individual basis, with clear inspirations for each design.
Take, for example, one of Newson's first designs after leaving art college - the obligatory chair.
The Lockheed Lounge was born out of hacking away at foam to produce a flowing form, and then covering it with aluminium sheets. Newson had originally envisaged a smooth, seamless form, like a blob of liquid metal, but didn't have the means to achieve it. Instead he took inspiration from aircraft manufacture and attached the sheet metal using blind rivets. The result is a design that has evolved from an initial inspiration, and has since gone on to sell for more than £1M. However, with this piece Newson has fulfilled the "designer" stereotype and made an entirely useless object. Owners of these chairs say that they are uncomfortable, weak and that they use them primarily to hang things on. So is this good or successful design? I suspect that I would fail my degree if, for my final year design project, I produced an inherently simple object that failed to fulfill any of its basic functions and yet still managed to look as spectacularly ugly as the Lockheed Lounge.
The theme continues in much of Newson's other work; he has designed many things (a lot of them are seats of some form) that are impractical or useless. Newson designed the interior of a proposed "space plane" project that never took off. He designed seats that are perpendicular to the direction of travel, with a pivot so that the passenger is always level as the plane pitches upwards. Unfortunately, Newson failed to consider the practicalities of this from and engineering point of view. The pivots have no dampers, so the seats will rock violently from side to side during flight. During the zero G push over at the peak of the flight, there is nothing to stop the seat turning completely upside down and continuing to rotate. Newson states that "refined engineering is beautiful," but seems to lack any grasp of basic engineering concepts.
So are Newson's designs all conceptual, all impractical? Surprisingly, no. He has designed some more impractical furniture from marble, but accquired knowledge of the material by using it. He has then gone on to design a shoe boutique made entirely from leather, glass and marble. He was also Creative Director at Qantas Airlines, and is responsible for the complete design of everything the customer interacts with - from the lounge to the aircraft interior. For once, Newson managed to get a chair right, and designed a well thought out solution to aircraft seating, which, unusually for him, actually considers the user experience. Perhaps this stems from the fact that his favourite place to design is on an aeroplane, so he has spent a lot of time as the user himself. Perhaps this success is also due to the rest of Newson's team - he supplies the conceptual design, and they are tasked with making it a working reality.
Ultimately, designers like Marc Newson are neccessary. Someone needs to challenge the norm and come up with conceptual ideas born from unusual inspirations. But good design is design that fulfills a purpose - the Oxford definition of a chair is "a thing made or used for sitting on." How can you claim to have designed a chair if it can't be sat on?
