Design is broken. Young and not-so-young designers are becoming increasingly aware of this. Many feel impotent: they were told they had the tools to make the world a better place, but instead the world takes its toll on them. Beyond a haze of hype and bold claims lies a barren land of self-doubt and impostor syndrome. This book probes the disillusionment that permeates design. It tackles the deskilling effects provoked by digital semi-automation, the instances of ornamental politics fashioned...

The scarcity of resources, climate change, and the digitalization of everyday life are fuelling the economy of swapping, sharing, and lending—all of which are in some way linked to a culture of commoning. In this context, we understand commons as community-based processes that use, collectively manage, and organize generally accessible resources—referring to both goods and knowledge. Commons in Design explores the meaning and impact of commons—especially knowledge-based peer commons—a...

An invaluable introduction for designers and creatives on how to create digital interfaces for users.

Over the last few decades the term ‘bootlegging’—a practice once relegated to smugglers and copyright infringers—has become understood as a creative act. Debates about homage, appropriation, and theft that are common in the art world, are now being held in the spheres of corporate branding, social media, and the creative industry as a whole. Today, bootlegging has become fetishized as an aesthetic in and of itself, influencing everything from underground record labels to DIY T-shirts,...

Stefan Sagmeister’s newest project encourages long-term thinking and reminds us that many things in the world are improving

Initially conceived in 2020 as the world entered pandemic lockdown, Stefan Sagmeister has created a book that looks at the state of the world today, illuminating, through collected data, how far we’ve come, and encouraging us to think about where we can go from here. Statistics are vividly brought to life, as numbers are transformed into graphs, inlaid into nineteent...

“Relation of Elements” explores the role of prepositions in architecture and design, a part of speech often overlooked when describing and designing architecture. The book demonstrates how language can shape our understanding of objects and spaces and allows you to discover new ways to shape and define space.

The book aims to inspire architects and designers to think creatively by manipulating prepositions and exploring the connections between different composition and structure elements....

The Failed Painter is a personal book about material anxiety in Graphic design's creative work. It speaks of fascination for singular and multiple production processes, perfectibility, and imperfectability in times of virtual surface and hunger for authenticity. Writing out of the persona ‘The Failed Painter’, this book is a collection of essays on design and art spanning culture, race, nation, and sheer vandalism from the author of The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Art...

The anatomy of our bodies requires sitting; but do we design seats in the same way? Has our meaning of sitting been colonised by Modern design? And how is the diverse, social-cultural act of sitting itself reflected in this functional commodity? In observing and analysing social and cultural differences through chairs from eight cultures in the most populated countries, Sicilian designer Matteo Guarnaccia went on a field research to portray each country, in collaboration with selected local d...

Initiated by professional curator and editor Freek Lomme, ‘Can You Feel It?’ invites the reader to explore tactility and our interaction with printed matter. Six international artists produced either graphic samples or the essence of tactility during a residency at the Frans Masereel Centrum. Compiling their practice-based experiments and processes, this book also includes animated introductions of printing techniques in the form of fictionalised characters, and eight essay contributions ...