Stephen Bayley – författare

The pitch is the absolute essence of modern business. Ideas are the most valuable commodity in the modern economy and it is human skill which develops them. However the skills of the pitch are not only relevant to the world of business, rather they apply to just about every significant personal transaction in your life...So whether at a sales conference in corporate conference room hell or over lunch at a glamorous restaurant, Life's a Pitch tells you how to handle human transactions. A pitch is not a meeting, it's a drama. A pitch is not about transferring information, it's about transferring power. It is business, but it is also theatre. Part inspirational manual for business, part guidebook to a successful and happy social life, Life's a Pitch is written as the result of an accumulated half century of (mostly successful) pitching by the authors. Ground-breaking and genre-busting, it will transform the way you think about the art of persuasion for ever.

________‘Promises to show readers how to think boldly and spark imaginative thought’ (FT) ________Creativity is a powerful force. It drives innovation, boosts our economy and enables us to fulfil our human potential. But what actually is creativity? Is it overrated? And where exactly do ideas come from in the first place?In this book, design gurus Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity debunk the myths and common misconceptions that form our current thinking around this complex subject. In showing readers how to think boldly and remain undaunted by challenges, they examine the phenomenon from all sides: not only the creativity of invention and of imagination but also that of perception and of discovery, in order to reveal the truths we often overlook.Ultimately, How to Steal Fire will help you reclaim yourself from the anonymous dreariness of a data-driven culture and spark imaginative thought.

'A terrific read, bubbling with anecdotes and insight' Daily Mail, 2021's best biographies'Bayley, the author of books on style, design and taste, tells the Habitat story with his customary polycultural panache . . . [Mavity is] good at conveying the experience of being in a room with Conran' Sunday TimesTerence Conran, a visionary and a myopic. A design entrepreneur and imaginative restaurateur, he was a democratising idealist who was also a selfish hedonist. His influence is everywhere in modern Britain from where we live to what we eat. Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most definitive, intimate and revelatory biography of this design legend, by two of his closest collaborators, Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley. Frank, amusing, indiscreet, sharp, rude, respectful and knowing, it tells Terence's story as it evolved, from before Habitat's humble chicken brick to Bibendum's sophisticated poulet de Bresse, via personal successes and corporate calamities, culminating in that peculiar temple to the religion he invented: The Design Museum. It celebrates Terence's genius and immeasurable impact on British life - and ensures his rightful status as national treasure. Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most candid, up-close insight into the man and myth.

'Bayley, the author of books on style, design and taste, tells the Habitat story with his customary polycultural panache . . . [Mavity is] good at conveying the experience of being in a room with Conran' Sunday TimesTerence Conran, a visionary and a myopic. A design entrepreneur and imaginative restaurateur, he was a democratising idealist who was also a selfish hedonist. His influence is everywhere in modern Britain from where we live to what we eat. Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most definitive, intimate and revelatory biography of this design legend, by two of his closest collaborators, Roger Mavity and Stephen Bayley. Frank, amusing, indiscreet, sharp, rude, respectful and knowing, it tells Terence's story as it evolved, from before Habitat's humble chicken brick to Bibendum's sophisticated poulet de Bresse, via personal successes and corporate calamities, culminating in that peculiar temple to the religion he invented: The Design Museum. It celebrates Terence's genius and immeasurable impact on British life - and ensures his rightful status as national treasure. Terence: The Man Who Invented Design is the most candid, up-close insight into the man and myth.

Since the industrial revolution, when everything ran by clockwork, people have understood how important it is to live in the moment. But over time our world has grown increasingly busy, and we've lost our ability to truly savour each unique experience and the simple pleasures the world has to offer.Cultural commentator and critic Stephen Bayley seeks to explain what real value is: it's about taking the time and making the effort to appreciate things, of understanding the permanent charm of modest daily rituals performed with care and feeling. Of caring about appearances and meaning. Of being bold in matters of taste. Of fully understanding the source of lasting pleasure. Of making every encounter with an object or person meaningful.Value is an elegiac account of what's recently been lost in the digital apocalypse. But also an enthusiastic anticipation of what we can regain in a post-viral, more analogue and more thoughtful world.

Wittgenstein said that if people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever happen. In this compelling A-Z of modern ignorance, Stephen Bayley gathers silly, curious and sometimes shocking facts on everything that makes our world tick. Why does Judeo-Christianity love mountains? Why was fear of drinking from skulls the original reason for cremation? And where does the word f*** come from (hint: think berets)? You'll be surprised how much you never knew!

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link is Britain's first dedicated high-speed railway line and its first major railway-building project in more than a century. Running from London's newly refurbished St Pancras International to the mouth of the Channel Tunnel, the link will decrease journey times to Paris and beyond, as well as to commuter towns in the south-east of England. The project is also being credited with significant regeneration in the areas around the new stations and terminus. Well-known architecture and design commentator Stephen Bayley tells the story of the building of the link and its sensitive insertion into the rural and urban landscape, from the spectacular renaissance of St Pancras to the unearthing of significant archaeological remains along the route, and from the creation of bridges, viaducts and tunnels to the planting of wild-flower meadows. Lively and entertaining, this is a fascinating record of a ground breaking project.

Regardless of style, age or size, a home should be a place of refuge, a private space in which we can feel truly comfortable, whether spending time on our own or entertaining friends. Above all, it should be a place of our own making, filled with the books, furniture and other cherished objects that say so much about who we are. Nowhere is this philosophy more apparent than in the work of Chester Jones, one of the UK's most celebrated interior designers and decorators. Lavishly illustrated throughout, The Interiors of Chester Jones provides a unique and fascinating insight into both Jones himself - a former architect and managing director of Colefax and Fowler - and the thinking behind the many rich and nuanced interiors he has created since establishing his own firm in 1989. The book covers every aspect of his work, from his distinctive use of art and artefacts to his sympathetic treatment of a building's architectural history, and includes a series of in-depth case studies on past projects. At the heart of this beautiful book is Jones's own belief that to be happy in one's own surroundings, to live contentedly in a space of our own design, is to feel genuinely at home.

"Liverpool has an almost overwhelming physical character...Brooding, slovenly, magnificent, romantic, miserable, tatty, funny, proud, heroic, shameless, tragic, exciting in turns, it's a city that demands a response." Liverpool: Shaping the City is an objective and entertaining assessment of the city's architectural history and recent regeneration, taking the reader on a journey of the city which was once proud and wealthy, then declined into ruin, and is now visibly resurgent. Written by Stephen Bayley, The Observer's architecture and design correspondent, the first two chapters are a personal and eloquent response to Liverpool's world class and often controversial architectural past and recent regeneration. The third chapter showcases thirty of the most critical projects of the last twenty years grouped by building type, including the Tate Liverpool, the Echo Arena and the critically acclaimed Liverpool One masterplan. Beautifully illustrated with photos and plans, this is a valuable and enlightening book for professionals, academics, journalists and anyone interested in understanding the context of the recent regeneration of Liverpool.

How do we define taste? The only certainty is that it shifts and changes - sometimes abruptly. With the explosion of vulgar consumerism in the mid-nineteenth century, the Victorians seized upon the notion of good taste as a way of codifying middle-class mores. A century later, to talk about taste had become almost taboo, since judgments made about dress, manners, food and art can often be painfully revealing. And today? When this classic text was first published in 1991, Stephen Bayley illuminated the nuances and niceties of our mercurial understanding of taste. In this new edition, he ranges far and wide to bring us exquisitely up to date. 'I don't know anybody with more interesting observations about style, taste and contemporary design' Tom Wolfe on Stephen Bayley

The automobile is the ultimate analogue machine and mankind’s most ingenious, seductive and damaging invention. For over a century, cars have provided reference points for our notions of style, status and desire. In design terms, the Age of Combustion was as rich and varied as architecture’s Baroque – and far more popular. And now it is coming to an end, as the internal-combustion engine is superseded by the battery and cars become wheeled computers, running on AI not oil. Together with a wide-ranging introduction, this book reproduces 60 of Stephen Bayley’s popular monthly columns for Octane, the outstanding classic car magazine where, for more than 10 years, he has provided the most consistent and insightful commentary on car culture, often based on privileged access to industry insiders.

How do we define taste? The only certainty is that it shifts and changes - sometimes abruptly. With the explosion of vulgar consumerism in the mid-nineteenth century, the Victorians seized upon the notion of good taste as a way of codifying middle-class mores. A century later, to talk about taste had become almost taboo, since judgments made about dress, manners, food and art can often be painfully revealing. And today? When this classic text was first published in 1991, Stephen Bayley illuminated the nuances and niceties of our mercurial understanding of taste. In this new edition, he ranges far and wide to bring us exquisitely up to date. 'I don't know anybody with more interesting observations about style, taste and contemporary design' Tom Wolfe on Stephen Bayley

"This is not a book for those who are only interested in cars. It is a compelling, sometimes uncomfortable journey through our fascination with speed, status and mortality..." — NL MagazineCars have a talismanic quality. No other manufactured object has the same disturbing allure. More emotions are involved in cars and car design than in any other product: vanity, cupidity, greed, social competitiveness and cultural modelling. But when all this perverse promise ends in catastrophe, these same talismanic qualities acquire an extra dimension.The car crash is a defining phenomenon of popular culture. Death Drive is both an appreciative essay about the historic place of the automobile in the modern imagination and a detailed exploration of the circumstances of 24 celebrity car crashes, from Isadora Duncan in an Amilcar, in 1927, to Helmut Newton in a Cadillac, in 2004. The author concludes by confronting the imminent demise of the car itself.