Toothpicks & Logos: Design in Everyday Life
April 21st, 2003by John Heskett
ISBN: 0192804448
This book didn’t turn out to be as sexy as I thought it was going to be, but it did turn out to be an interesting book.
Heskett has put together an introductory text for design, sort of survey course in one book, but more interesting than survey courses tend to be. Short, well-organized chapters outline major areas: defining design; a quick history lesson; the difference between utility and significance; the design of objects, communications, environments, identities, and systems; the contexts of design; and a look at the future in design work.
He has a knack for creating simple definitions that make sense for terms that could otherwise be debated for whole chapters. So objects, for purposes of his discussion, “are a crucial expression of ideas of how we could or should live, put into tangible form.” He also picks interesting things (such as the cultural factors determining the design of Japanese toothpicks) to use as examples.
The quibbles I have with the book are more about the publisher than Heckett, I suppose. First, all the illustrations in the book are reproduced in black and white. This was probably done to keep the cost down (which I appreciate, you don’t often see books on design for under $15) but color would have added the sexy factor — and it is downright painful to see a black and white photo of an iMac. The other thing that bothered me, because I came across it two or three times, was a typo. Maybe it is a personal quirk, but it really bugs me when I see typos in published material. On a topic where you expect a high level of detail to be paid to the visual, and from Oxford University Press, this was quite disconcerting.
I am not a designer, just someone with an interest in design (web and information design in particular) and I thought this was an accessible and interesting introduction to the whole range of ideas that is the design field. Definitely recommended.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:00 am
A typo in the first sentence of the book no less. The same typo that is in the Very Short Introduction Oxford has tried to make people believe is different than this one! It is the same!