Sweet simplicity in stainless steel.

 

Who was it that said 'Less is more'?

Do you find that sometimes, when you see and an object, it looks and feels just right? It may not be an expensive object – like this humble sugar shaker – but somehow you get the feeling that the designer got it spot on.

I do. And I did, when I found this stainless steel kitchen accessory in a local charity shop recently.

I suspect that simplicity is the key. And I imagine that it's not easy for a designer to get that just right: keeping to a perfectly symmetrical form, resisting the urge to add any decoration and carefully considering every small detail right down to the arrangement of the holes in the top. Simple but not easy.

As for the sugar shaker itself, all I know of it is that it was made in Britain by Chichester, I would guess around the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Sweet.

Robert Welch Design in a Cotswold Workshop

Not a pot this time, a book. A very nice book.

I was lucky enough to find this fantastic reference book on the life and work of Robert Welch. Published by Lund Humphries, London in 1973, Robert Welch Design in a Cotswold Workshop is a beautiful book. Designed by the Pentagram Partnership, the page layouts and graphics are clean and simple, and the photography is superb.

The book is full of detailed descriptions and images of Robert Welch's elegant designs. It features some incredible silver, as well as lighting and ceramics. The stainless steel and cast iron objects are particularly interesting, not least because they can still be found out there at quite reasonable prices.

I would recommend anyone with an interest in the great designer's early work to beg, steal or borrow a copy of this book.

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