When Jonathan Adler is inspired to name a new design for Formica for Josef Albers, I’m ready to like it.
It’s like chocolate and peanut butter. Really hard to get anything less than delicious from the combination of two design forces like Jonathan Adler and Josef Albers.
Color theory is either a designer’s dread or elation. For the artists, who are wholeheartedly unquestioningly intuitive, color theory applies those rules and borders to what is a ‘flow’ to the creation of beauty. For designers who like to digest data and find reasons to create design rules, the color theory part of design is at a fundamental core.
So Josef Albers lives in a fame-land of the second half of the designers. Those who find it amazing and gratifying how color can be affected by other colors, and be made to seem not what it is by association and placement.
Jonathan Adler’s patterns for Formica have been bold, smart, and are pushing the edge on what we can expect from a laminate surface. And in doing this, I’ve been thinking about laminate as more than just a work surface. It’s art. It’s a wall treatment. It’s a power statement.
Formica is showing 10 new laminates inspired by design trends, including the collaboration with Jonathan Adler, at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (#KBIS2016), and I’m more than delighted to know that I’ll be seeing these new patterns in real life.