Designing the Surface

What determines a product’s appeal, function and identity? Increasingly it is the finish that designers employ not only to beautify a product, but also to strengthen, preserve or disguise it. The last layer can simulate ageing, form an impenetrable shell or function as a convincing imitation of craftsmanship. Designing the Surface, an exhibition where the final topcoat targets the senses, investigates a compendium of artefacts over five sets: lustre, patina, faux, teflon and agency. Surfaces are full of contradictions; declarations of falsehood and denials. Chairs lie. Dashboards deceive. Take a look into the transformation of products – trying to survive in the design world, where nothing is what is seems.

Designing the Surface. Photo Johannes Schwartz

Chris Kabel for Interwoven

Chris Kabel wrote a series of articles about 'the finish' for the online journal Interwoven: the fabric of things.

Designing the Surface video on ARTtube

ARTtube features the Designing the Surface video, with English subtitles.

watch the video

Alice Rawsthorn on the Surface

Design critic Alice Rawsthorn gave a lecture at the event Designing the Surface on 23 March 2017 that explored how our exposure to digital technology has transformed our perceptions of surfaces

Faux Series

The Faux Series is the result of research carried out by Chris Kabel into the finish of objects, inspired by current developments in photography, where traditional photographic print is becoming more and more object-like and three-dimensional.