writing

An interview with Andrew Shea on Designing for Social Change

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Identified as a “place to start” by renowned designer and social entrepreneur, William Drenttel, Designing for Social Change by Andrew Shea, is an insightful guidebook and designer’s co-pilot containing a compilation of case studies that illustrate project concepts, funding resources, processes, strategies, and outcomes. It is a go-to resource for any designer interested or engaged in [...]

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The journey of larks, Life and Punctuation..?

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I have been delaying reviewing User Design’s – aka Thomas Bohm’s – series of self-published illustrated books, The journey of larks, Life and Punctuation..?. Partly this has been a lack of time, but partly it is because I’m not quite sure where to situate them. I’ll take each book in turn: The journey of larks [...]

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Just Design, Socially Conscious Design for Critical Causes

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“Designers are the mediators of our daily experience. The easier my compost bucket is to use, the more appealing my reusable grocery bag, the more likely I am to participate in environmentally sound practices. Designers carry a heavy responsibility, but at the same time they can offer our future the greatest gift.” So says Gavin [...]

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Thoughts on Interaction Design, Second Edition

Thoughts on Interaction Design, 2nd Edition

How often do you read a design text that impacts your life dramatically? As someone relatively new to the field of Interaction Design, John Kolko’s Thoughts on Interaction Design, Second Edition has allowed me to understand so much about the way I think, and the approach I’ve taken towards designing over the years. It’s content [...]

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Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

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This is going to be a short review because there have been so many reviews and commentaries about the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson (Amazon: US|UK|DE) that it seems there is almost nothing left to say. The question this review sets out to answer is, “why should designers read Steve Jobs’s biography?” On a [...]

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Just My Type: More Than A Book About Fonts

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

If every typography book were written like Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (Amazon: US|UK|DE), more people would care about the subject. British author and journalist Simon Garfield’s tone is so accessible, it feels like he lived through 600 years of history and just popped by to talk about it. Font geeks will enjoy [...]

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Dieter Rams Double Review – Less and More & As Little Design As Possible

Double review of Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams and Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Review by Carolina de Bartolo “To design is to think.” —Dieter Rams, Industrial Designer (b. 1932–, Weisbaden, Germany) What can I tell you about Dieter Rams that you don’t already know? Since one of his [...]

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Women of Design

Women of Design Book Review

Women Of Design: Influence And Inspiration From The Original Trailblazers To The New Groundbreakers is one of four books that have been written by the husband and wife team of Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit. You can find the expanse of their work, which includes many recognizable websites from the design community, their other 3 [...]

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We, Me, Them & It

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We, Me, Them & It by John Simmons can be summed up by an endorsement on its front cover: “For weeks, [the book] rested with many others, then something intrigued me about the title. I read it in one sitting. Fascinating.” – Niall FitzGerald, Chairman of Unilever Though a rewarding book due to the description of how [...]

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Designers Don’t Read

Designers Don't Read

I wanted to read Austin Howe’s Designers Don’t Read just to be contrary. I read a great deal, as you might imagine writing these reviews. Indeed, one of the main reasons for starting The Designer’s Review of Books was a complaint about the paucity of writing in many design books. Howe is a Creative Director [...]

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