What I liked about the book is the range of subjects, for example the hundred include: a Filofax; Slinky; bubble wrap; Lego brick; ball bearing race; Hex wrench set; a pushpin; a zip; bar code and from centuries ago a champagne cork. Plenty of other books (and a favourite editorial for magazines, too) cover the origin of every day products but not as many as a hundred.
Maybe the book's sub-deck 'marvels of design' could be stretching it a bit to include Adams chewing gum, a sugar cube or a spaghetti noodles but they need machinery to make them in the most efficient way. The odd one out in the hundred is Milton Glaser's I love NY logo (where love is a heart symbol) simplicity itself and the book shows it on a T-shirt. The text to each object is an interesting mix of historical data and manufacturing detail. I didn't know that the ZEROLL ice cream scoop (the one that's made out of one piece of aluminium) has some antifreeze in the handle part which takes heat from a users hand and transmits just enough of it to the bowl allowing the curl of ice cream to fall out.
This seven inch square book could be considered a marvel of design. Each spread is the same, a large, extreme close-up of the product on the left-hand page and on the facing page a block of copy and a small cutout of the item, the typography is clean and tidy, too. Because the close-up photos are interesting enough they don't make looking through the book predictable.
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