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Dictionary of Modern Design

July 28, 2009 by Roy Johnson

design, designers, products, movements, influences

This Dictionary of Modern Design is a serious textual resource on design matters, written by somebody who is quite clearly steeped in his subject. Jonathan Woodham is Professor of the History of Design at the University of Brighton, and this compendium has all the hallmarks of being a summation of a lifetime’s work. It’s an A to Z compendium of entries which run from architects and designers Alvar and Aino Aalto, through to typographer and book designer Hermann Zapf. It covers the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth.

There are over 2,000 entries on names and movements from the past 150 years of design. The only weakness is that there are hardly any illustrations – something they might rectify in a second edition. Individual entries are a mixture of individual designers – Paul Rand, Milton Glaser, and Jan Tschichold, plus movements such as Bauhaus, Omega workshops, and Wiener Werkstatte, to specific products such as The Dyson vacuum cleaner, Levi Strauss jeans, and the bathroom fittings suppliers Villeroy and Boch.

There are also entries on materials (polypropylene) places (Museum of Modern Art) events (Festival of Britain) institutions (the Design Institute) and even individual products such as Barby, the wonder doll, plus entries on companies (Habitat, IKEA) product strategies (flatpacks) materials (Formica) typographists (Eric Gill) and even shops (Biba and Healds).

Individual entries are punctuated by occasional pull-out boxes which define movements and general terms – such as art deco, constructivism, kitsch, neo-modernism, and streamlining. The entries are presented in a plain and uncluttered prose style, with cross references to related items:

Lissitsky, El (Lazar Markovich Lissitsky 1890—1941) The Russian *Constructivist typographer, graphic designer, architect, painter, photographer and theorist El Lissitsky was influential in the dissemination of *Modernism both through his work and his theoretical writings. He studied architecture and engineering under Joseph Maria *Olbrich and others at the Technical School at Darmstadt between 1909 and 1914, visiting Paris, the hub of avant-garde artistic activity, in 1911. He moved back to Russia to practise architecture in 1914, but also worked in the fine arts and illustration, underlining notions of his concept of the ‘artist-engineer’…
[and so on]

It’s a shame there aren’t more illustrations, but there’s a huge bibliography which reflects the scholarly provenance, a timeline which puts design events from 1840 to the present into a social and political context, and a comprehensive bibliography.

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Jonathan M. Woodham, A Dictionary of Modern Design, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp.544, ISBN: 0192806394

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Emotional Design

July 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

why we love (and hate) the everyday objects we use

Donald Norman is famous for The Design of Everyday Things – a best-selling study of the need for functionality in consumer product design. It’s no good having tea pots that don’t pour properly, chairs you can’t sit in, or doorknobs that don’t open the door. Emotional Design is his follow up to that study, in which he revises his views. He confesses that he had previous under-rated the importance of emotions and aesthetics:

in writing The Design of Everyday Things I didn’t take emotions into account … But now I have changed … Sure, utility and usability are important, but without fun and pleasure, joy and excitement…our lives would be incomplete. Along with our emotions, there is one other point as well: aesthetics, attractiveness, and beauty.

The first part of the book is actually concerned with the psychology of our response to objects. He suggests that we perceive them at a visceral, behavioural ,and a reflective level. That is – Do I like it? Does it work? and Will I use it again? The first is instinctive, the second rational, the third a combination of experience and cultural influence, rather like the super-ego.

The second part of the book applies these principles to product design. His examples range from mineral water bottles to web sites, and from hiking boots to industrial vacuum cleaners.

What he does here is to emphasise the desirability of good shape and satisfying textures. The rest is a repeat of what he argued in the earlier book. The product must work easily, and ideally it should be tested for usability (presumably by a company such as the Nielsen-Norman Group).

He is still generally on the side of functionality, but now appears to be prepared to defend the appeal of glamorous surfaces. However, you do begin to wonder about his judgements when he gets excited about owning one of those Martian-looking Philippe Starck lemon juicers which even the designer confesses were “not designed to squeeze lemons [but] to start conversations.”

He gets so carried away that when he comes to analyse the social interactions of text messaging and mobile phone conversations, it’s hard to see what it has to do with design, and much of what he has to say should be fairly obvious to everyone conversant with their advantages and limitations.

He eventually blends this interest in emotions and design by considering the future of robots which have been programmed to have emotions. Not necessarily human emotions, but appropriate for their function and survival.

Strangely enough, the rationale for all this is given in an epilogue which traces the development of his professional career. He has latterly been working with psychologists and now sees that human choices are made on more than functionality alone. [One wonders whether his business partner, the ultra-functionalist Jakob Nielsen is persuaded by this approach.]

This is a lively, thought-provoking study of design principles. Donald Norman writes in a friendly, jargon-free style, and he communicates a humane enthusiasm for his subject. I doubt that this will dislodge The Design of Everyday Things from the top of the Design Classics list, but it is one which anyone with an interest in design will not want to miss.

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Donald A. Norman, Emotional Design: why we love (or hate) everyday things, New York: Basic Books, 2003, pp.257, ISBN: 0465051359.

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Green Architecture

July 25, 2009 by Roy Johnson

the art of architecture in an age of ecology

This is a general exploration of one of the most complex and important issues of today – how to construct a human habitat in harmony with nature. The chapters in Green Architecture include a review of twentieth-century green architecture, a review of eco-oriented shelter from Neolithic times to the present, and a survey of those practising architects who are currently seeking to change the relationship between buildings and the environment.

James Wines knows his subject inside-out, and he is as committed to the idea of socially responsible architecture as his parallels in product design – Viktor Papanek and Donald Norman. Like them he refuses to be taken in by design which looks good, but which doesn’t work. In fact his study is something of a critique of much modern architecture, with its modish adherence to ‘vast expanses of plate glass and cantilevered, tilted, or skewed steel trusses’

There’s a marvelous chapter on buildings which have been deliberately conceived to blend in with the surrounding terrain – houses which insert themselves into hillsides, with grass roofs and barely detectable doorways.

I was interested to note that he dug out lots of designs from the early twentieth century which we would now call ‘futuristic’ – concepts for cityscapes crafted in the 1920s by designers such as Chernikhov, Sant’ Ella, or even designed and built by people such as Gerrit Rietveld in 1924.

Le Corbusier and his industry-inspired idea of ‘the house as a machine for living in’ comes for a great deal of justified criticism, and he is happy to quote Le Corbusier’s late-in-life mea culpa on the dust jacket: “Life is right, and the architect is wrong”.

His heroes are Frank Lloyd Right, Lewis Mumford, and Rachel Carson – all supporters of ecology long before the term became fashionable.

He’s also a great fan of the natural buildings fashioned from mud and home-made bricks which we admire in Africa and the middle East. Yet he’s not a dewy-eyed sentimentalist, admitting that these places were constructed that way simply because the original builders simply didn’t have access to any other materials.

This is a book which was published ahead of its time, and whose day has now come. It’s a study of architecture on ecological principles – buildings which blend sympathetically with their environmental context. More than that, they also use materials and focus their design principles on the basis of using as few as possible of the earth’s resources.

Don’t be misled by the low price. This is a serious study, and a beautifully illustrated production.

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James Wines, Green Architecture, London: Taschen, 2000, pp.240, ISBN: 3822863033

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Industrial Design A-Z

June 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

influential 20C designers, companies, and products

These Taschen pocketbooks are very well produced, with high quality print, full colour illustrations, and amazingly cheap. I’ve bought several of them, both in the UK and abroad, and somehow always been surprised at the integrity of the writing and the scholarship. But I have not been surprised at the quality of the illustration and the graphic design. It’s always been first rate.

This particular volume concentrates on industrial design – which authors Charlotte and Peter Fiell suggest is a twentieth century concept which essentially adds aesthetics to functionality and mass production. It’s an A to Z listing of designers and companies, running from AEG, via Herman Miller, to Xerox and the stylish but ill-fated product of Ferdinand Graff von Zeppelin.

Each entry consists of a biographical sketch or a historical account of a design company. The range of products represented is truly amazing – everything from the ball-point pen to aeroplanes designed by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. There are cars, cameras, telephones, vacuum cleaners, computers, typewriters, radios, and kettles, electric shavers, and office furniture. All of these design classics are illustrated by well-chosen full colour photographs.

Standout individuals include the multi-talented and hugely influential Peter Behrens, Henry Dreyfuss, and Raymond Loewy. It’s interesting to note how many of the most influential were trans-nationals and how many German – either by birth, education, or influence.

The authors are both experts in industrial design, both ex-Sotheby’s, and now running their own design consultancy in London, specialising in industrial design. They offer some fascinating information which reveals the breadth of their knowledge. Did you know that over 15 million BIC pens are sold every day, and that the best-selling iMac was created by the English designer Jonathan Ive?

If you are the slightest interested in design, it’s really impossible to go wrong with this book – which is itself well designed, stylishly illustrated, and amazingly cheap.

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Charlotte and Peter Fiell, Industrial Design A—Z, Taschen, 2003, pp.190, ISBN: 3822824267

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Information Design

June 29, 2009 by Roy Johnson

essays on the theory and practice of information design

There has recently been a great deal of debate amongst members of the design community about the status of their profession, the exact meaning of ‘information design’, and the nature of what it is they are supposed to be doing. This collection of essays is a contribution to that debate and an attempt to think about the future of information design. The first part of the book offers a number of theoretical statements, in the best of which Robert E. Horn – one of the earliest pioneers of writing about hypertext – provides a useful historical survey of designers of information.

He summarises his argument by claiming that there now exists a ‘visual language’ in which words, images, and shapes are combined into what he calls a ‘unified communication unit’. In another interesting essay, Romedi Passini discusses the issue of ‘wayfinding’ – which he points out is not merely a matter of signs. People navigate their passage through known and unknown terrain using markers and semiotics more subtle than pointing fingers and boards saying ‘This Way’. This essay is crying out for more illustration, which is rather surprising in a study of design.

Part two is concerned with practical applications, and offers examples as broad as tactile signage in an institution for visual disorders, graphic tools for thinking, and visual design in three dimensions. The longest and possibly most successful contribution is by C. G. Screven on signage in museums and other public places – successful because it unites theory and practice.

The third part deals with design in the field of information technology. An essay by Jim Gasperini breathes some new life into the collection with his consideration of fiction, drama, and hypertext, and there are brief excursions into fractal sculpture and multimedia.

If ‘information design’ is now a coherent discipline and an honorable profession, then it could do with asserting itself more forcibly than do some of the contributors here. [Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville’s Information Architecture for the World Wide Web should be compulsory reading for all of them.] However, it’s a start, and one which anybody engaged with the current debates will do well to study.

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Robert Jacobson (ed) Information Design, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, pp.357, ISBN 026210069X

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Milton Glaser: Art is Work

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

graphic design, interiors, objects and illustration

Don’t be put off by the cover design – this is a wonderful book. Milton Glaser is one of the most influential design and illustration gurus of the late 20th century in the USA. He was responsible for the “I love NY” logo and the poster of Bob Dylan with psychedelic hair which became a symbol of the 1980s. This is one of the few design books I have come across where the text is just as interesting as the graphics. Milton Glaser has thought a lot about the fundamentals of good design, and his ideas come through here via a series of interviews, plus his own commentary on the work illustrated.

And there’s a big bonus. He doesn’t just show his finished designs, but includes his preliminary drafts and early attempts which lead up to a successful outcome. So it’s like being invited to sit in his studio whilst he thinks and works out loud. He’s astonishingly versatile. The book contains examples of poster design, record covers, freehand drawings (amazingly similar to David Hockney in style) book illustrations, interior design, product design, typography, and publicity materials.

His observations focus on the aesthetics of creativity – and yet he keeps his eye on the commercial and professional aspects of his work. He’s frank enough to admit that if the client’s budget is not big enough, he is prepared to discriminate between a ‘one hour’ idea and a ‘six hour’ design.

He’s a great believer in the idea that designers must continue to draw to develop their ideas, and he believes in creation as a form of work and process:

When you’re thinking you do a sketch and it’s fuzzy. You have to keep it fuzzy so that the brain looks at it and imagines another iteration that is clearer. Then you do another sketch that advances it again. It may take a number of these intermediate solutions before you arrive.

It’s a very instructive experience to see his rough sketches develop as he stretches and changes an idea until he comes up with what looks a fresh and spontaneous picture. That’s what he means by his book title. These designs do not just happen spontaneously: they are the result of hard work

He is very aware of modern painters – Klee, Mondrian, the much under-rated Sonia Delauney, Klimt, and Max Ernst. There’s also a portrait of Duke Ellington which has elements of Francis Bacon in its colouring and handling of paint, and a series of posters for the Venice Biennale which combine images of the city’s emblematic lion with ink spattering reflecting his appreciation of the work of Jackson Pollock

I found his book illustrations less successful, his restaurant designs inspired in terms of lighting, and his product design superb. There’s a whole page of sketches for a cocktail glass, any one of which you would be pleased to hold. But the finished product – complete with double-sided conical bowl with a vacuum to keep your Martini cold, fluted stem, and Art Deco collar uniting the two – well, my knees went weak when I turned the page, and I would pay substantial money to own a set.

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Milton Glaser, Art is Work, London: Thames and Hudson, 2000, pp.272, ISBN 0500510288

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Small Things Considered

November 5, 2009 by Roy Johnson

reasons why there is no perfect design

Henry Petrowski is professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, North Carolina. He writes extensively on engineering and design in a populist manner which helps to explain academic and scientific matters to the average reader. And he does it very well. He has a fluent and easy style which reads like someone talking to you over drinks on a veranda on a hot sunny afternoon. Small Things Considered is a good example of his work.

His main argument in this, one of his many books on the subject, is that considerations of design affect even the small matters of everyday life. And I mean small. Nothing is too insignificant in the running of a normal house to escape his attention – thirty pages on a glass of water, a whole chapter on coffee cup holders in cars, or on the design of paper bags. There’s even a chapter on the positioning of handles on doors.

The reason this is all spelled out at such length is that as part of his leisurely style, he looks at all the ways the design of something might have gone wrong, how the designers could have failed or overlooked some important requirement – before he goes on to look at the more essential element of how they got it right. Nevertheless, his sub-title is significant: even the best-designed objects can eventually be improved upon. As he points out, most patent applications carry ‘Improvement on …’ as part of their title.

The best parts of his accounts are where he delivers the history of a design or an invention, the practicalities of making something work and the financing of prototypes and commercial models. He’s also good the moment he strays into issues of patents, copyright, and ownership, because he obviously knows the history of his subject.

He waxes eloquently about very basic products such as duct tape, WD-40, and Teflon, pointing out just how much research and design went into these apparently simple items. Indeed, WD-40 even gets its name from the fact that the manufacturer’s previous thirty-nine attempts to develop a Water Displacement prototype had not been successful. It was the fortieth that delivered the goods – and then more so when people found all sorts of inventive uses for it. Now it is used for oiling squeaky hinges, loosening stubborn bolts, dissolving glue, and even killing insects.

The most successful chapters are those that consider the details of a specific and complex product. Office chairs are a good case in point. His account of how the Herman Miller Aeron displaced the Steelcase chair of the 1950s takes into account ergonomics, materials, design innovation, ecology, and even social attitudes, though curiously enough he doesn’t mention economics (the Aeron is formidably expensive – as I discovered when I tried to buy one recently).

This is a book to be read alongside Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things and Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World. It certainly warrants a place on the syllabus of any serious design course, though I doubt that it will reach the classic status of those other two texts, even though it attempts to do so.

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Henry Petrowski, Small Things Considered, New York: Vintage Books, 2003, pp.288, ISBN: 1400032938

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The Design of Everyday Things

July 12, 2009 by Roy Johnson

classic design principles using everyday objects

Donald Norman is a product design and usability guru who has teamed up recently with Jakob Nielsen to form the influential Nielsen-Norman Group. They specialise in advising businesses on the usefulness of their web sites. The Design of Everyday Things is the latest edition of what has become a classic in usability principles in the short time since it was first published. Norman discusses the problems we all have with the results of bad design in everyday life – doors which open the wrong way; telephone calls you can’t put on hold; washing machines with spaceship control panels. He clarifies the rules of good design as he goes along. These turn out to be – visibility, good conceptual model, feedback, and natural mapping.

What this means is that the controls should be visually obvious, they should feel part of a natural process,they should tell you that an action has been performed, and they should reveal the connection between action and results. Every point of his argument is illustrated with practical examples and anecdotes drawn from the problems of normal life. These range from the trivialities of taking the wrong turn when driving, to the disastrous consequences of aircraft engine and nuclear reactor failure. One of the reasons this is such a charming and interesting book is that it’s written by an expert who admits to his own weaknesses and problems. This is the professor from MIT who can’t program his own video recorder, who says so, and who convinces you its not the user’s fault but that of the designer.

He’s also good at explaining the function and limitations of memory, and gives a clear account of one concept on which he relies heavily – mapping. This is the ability of good designers to arrange their controls, buttons, and switches in a way which corresponds to something we already know and have mentally internalised. He also offers interesting analyses of mistakes, breakdowns, and disasters – relating them to issues of both design and the relationship of humans to machines.

Donald Norman is a ‘usability’ guru who puts the user first. This is a witty and humane approach to the issues of good design – and it rightly deserves its reputation as a modern classic. You will never interact with the physical world in quite the same way again.

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Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, London/New York: MIT Press, 2000, pp.257, ISBN: 0262640376

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Visual Language for the Web

June 27, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Visual Language for the Web is a book about the language of icons, buttons, and navigational aids used in the design of graphical interfaces of computer software programs. The first chapter deals with Mayan hieroglyphs and Chinese ideograms – writing with pictures. This establishes how much information can be conveyed semiotically. Paul Honeywill then looks at how graphical icons are used in interface design – and how well we understand them, particularly on a multi-national level. Some, like the folder icon, have been successful and are now widely used.

Others seem to be understandable only within the context of the program for which they are designed. Next comes an explanation of the design of icons, taking account of the psychology of visual perception and the technology of rendering images on screen. He explains for instance why colours and font sizes are rendered differently on PCs and Macs.

He offers an introduction to digital font technology which will be useful for anyone who doesn’t already know how serif and sans-serif fonts are used for quite different purposes.

To illustrate the principles on which graphic icons best operate, he presents two case studies of designing business logos. He considers pictographic languages ranging from the natural Mayan hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform, to recent experiments such as Elephant’s Memory. But he seems reluctant to acknowledge their limitations in telling anything but simple narratives.

However, the very absence of any individual authority on the Internet means that any graphic icons which become generally accepted will be those which are commonly understood.

The last part of the book looks at testing recognition of icons – and comes to the unsurprising conclusion that the most effective and best known are those such as the magnifying glass ‘Search’ icon which appears in lots of different programs.

It has to be said that all this is sometimes discussed at a very theoretical level:

the day sign for Manik when it appears without the day sign cartouche in a non-calendrical context is chi

But this will be of interest to anybody concerned with the study of writing systems, as well as graphic designers, usability experts, and information architects.

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Paul Honeywill, Visual Language for the World Wide Web, Exeter: Intellect, 1999, pp.192, ISBN: 187151696X

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design, designers, products, movements, influences

why we love (and hate) the everyday objects we use

the art of architecture in an age of ecology

influential 20C designers, companies, and products

essays on the theory and practice of information design

graphic design, interiors, objects and illustration

reasons why there is no perfect design

classic design principles using everyday objects

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