The way Jonas Damon sees it, designers these days fall into two camps: those who hold fast to the principles of legendary German industrial designer Dieter Rams and those who are partial to the camp and kitsch of pop artist Jeff Koons. It’s a theory Damon, creative director at New York’s Frog Design office, picked up from his friend and fellow New York designer Ross Menuez — both of whom often produce work for Areaware, a design company that moves expertly back and forth along the Rams-Koons continuum.

Damon is decidedly a Rams guy, though he also claims as his influences Donald Judd, whose estate he worked for just after the artist’s mid-’90s death, and Tom Dixon, another former employer. The Rams connection is clear in the work Damon does for Areaware; a vacuum-tube radio with exposed innards and a dial that could have come straight out of Braun’s mid-century design lab is one of his best-known works.


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-joel