Stripes

Book excerpt: In Stripes: Design Between the Lines, writer and design expert Linda O’Keeffe explores the lineage of lines as they shape culture, art, and style. The illustrations create a rollicking visual ride while the accompanying text—by turns witty and weighty—shows how these potent, sometimes-charged symbols have even changed the course of world history. The simplest and most ancient of all decorative markings, stripes perpetually fascinate. Natural inspirations in the forms of zebra stripes, rippled sand dunes, and intricately gnarled wood grain have led us to use stripes in every permutation: on human bodies from elaborate woven textiles to the iconic Breton T-shirt to sharp pin-striped suits, in art from the earliest cave paintings to vibrant op art canvases, and in industrial design from World War II–era dazzle battleships to the ubiquitous bar code. Their appeal endures. With over 250 full-color images, Stripes: Design Between the Lines provides a wholly original look at one of the most recognizable patterns of all time. Eight thematic chapters present stripes in every conceivable manifestation, from diabolical to decorative, historic to postmodern. The result is a wonderfully varied visual collage that shows how design-savvy people throughout the ages and recent design stars including Jonathan Adler, Geoffrey Beene, Jamie Drake, Jean Paul Gaultier, Josef Hoffman, Sol LeWitt, Todd Oldham, Alberto Pinto, Giò Ponti, Karim Rashid, David Rockwell, Carolyne Roehm, Paul Smith, and Vivienne Westwood have incorporated stripes into their work and daily lives.