Not many designers are as well organized as Ed Annink, and at the same time so apt to leave things to chance. He arranges combinations of constraints, and from there goes on to design products and exhibitions. As a design teacher he proceeds from the same principle. His focus is to let students experience and develop their personal design process. As a designer Ed Annink stands out through the width of his scope. He designs on the run as it were and the objects he creates seem to be of minor importance among the ideas and activities that surround them. Some products take less than a minute to come alive. Often sketching ideas about material qualities, production, use and image without having a particular functionality in mind, he seeks to minimize effort for everyone involved, the producer, the person who makes the product, the one who sells it and the user too. As a teacher he may maximize the effort his students must make in order for them to discover what it means to be a designer. Written by Ida van Zijl, Gert Staal, Schwartz and Ed van Hinte (who also edited the book) and including interviews with, among others, clients from VITRA and Authentics, this monograph describes and analyses Annink's work as an exhibition and product designer, an educator and a project initiator.

Text contributions by Gert Staal, Ida van Zijl and Ineke Schwartz