The Starburst Clock

George Nelson Starburst Clocks

Here's an alternative to the Starburst Mirror—the Starburst Clock. If you are a Gleek like me and caught last week's episode (2/23), you may have noticed the small Starburst Clock in Rachel Barry's basement. (loved that episode!)
Because I am curious to know more about these clocks and the starburst trend of the moment, I tapped into my journalistic background and did a little research. It seems a man named George Nelson (1908-1986), a Hartford, Connecticut native, was the forerunner in this influential design. In fact Nelson was very influential designer in a post-World War II era, designing a modern house for "tomorrow's needs."

This Nelson design
resembled my aunt's
starburst clock in her
dining room

Starting in 1947, Nelson designed clocks for the Howard Miller Clock Co. Using pure color and bold graphic forms, the designs resembled sunbursts, sunflowers, and asterisks. The clocks were highly successful and became icons of high design (shopstyle.com). I remember growing up my aunt had one in her dining room. And in the vein of what's old is new again, they are available today in many reproductions on various sites ranging from Target to Overstock to Amazon—and are even reasonably priced. Naturally there are a plethora of sites out there with varying price ranges.
His imitators took the design a bit further using Roman numerals, spokes, brass, spokes capped with wooden balls, solid wood and “menacing” spikes (you can find these designs all over the net), but I found some reasonably priced beautiful reproductions (of mirrors and clocks) on Amazon, Overstock, Target, and Kohls.

Happy starburst!

Other important notes on Nelson:

·      * Nelson was the originator of the idea of family room and a storage wall—the first modular storage system ever! Now, how many of you have one of these to house your over-sized flat screen TV?

·      * Nelson designed the coconut chair. This kind of reminds me of an Odd Couple episode in which Felix and Oscar were fighting over furniture styles.

·      * Nelson developed the concept of the pedestrian mall