This is a TED talk about Ray and Charles Eames, by their grandson. It's interesting because it gives a more personal insight into their lives and what they were like as people. From this video I've learnt that at the heart of their work is a focus on design, and to them this applies not just to their work but to life.
There were a few good quotes by Charles Eames mentioned in this talk that I thought were really concise and summed up the importance of design, particularly for them. "the role of the designer is essentially that of a good host in anticipating the needs of the guest."
"The extent to which you have a design style is the extent to which you have not solved the design problem."
I particularly like the second quote because it showed how in depth they thought about their work. At another point in the video it's mentioned that the Eames had a very holistic vision of design, and this is shown in the wide variety of things they applied themselves to, like films, furniture, architecture and other things. Their aversion to trying to develop a specific design shows their vision of design as well. For example, when creating chairs, they tended to use a lot of curves because that worked best for chairs, but that didn't mean that they then applied this same "style" to their architecture, because curves wouldn't necessarily be most ideal for the design of a building and that's why the house they built was very focused on grids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8rICo44kAE
This video just reflects what I learnt from the previous video on their attitude towards design. The reason their work is so well thought through and well designed is because they didn't delegate understanding to anyone else, their work was developed and refined through their learning and understanding of what they were trying to make. A quote from the video is "they didn't see design as a confined practise, they saw it as a way of thinking." which I think can be seen in their work.
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