An information-packed, beautifully illustrated handbook exploring the evolution of design, from the industrial revolution to the digital explosion Designers, makers and users are the three essential participants in the creation of any kind of design. This is not limited to objects or buildings, but includes environments, systems and networks. Exploring these relationships enables us to understand how we shape the world and how it, in turn, shapes us. To coincide with the Design Museum's highly anticipated move to the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington in 2016, Designer Maker User traces the evolution of design, from its roots in the Industrial Revolution to its transformation by the digital explosion. Rather than present a conventional chronology, this book focuses on the continuing interaction between the three key players – Designers, Makers and Users – and the role of design in modern society. Featuring pivotal writings on design, a carefully-curated portfolio of design landmarks and a simple timeline charting the development of the modern design industry, Designer Maker User pushes beyond the walls of the museum, providing students and non-specialists with an appreciation for the significance of design and its far-reaching impact on the world in which we live. It is not only a view into the Design Museum's permanent collection, but also a remarkable primer on contemporary design.

This book is not a dictionary, though it tells you all you need know about everything from Authenticity to Zips. It's not an autobiography, though it does offer a revealing and highly personal inside view of contemporary culture. It's an essential tool kit for understanding the modern world. It's about what makes a Warhol a genuine fake; the creation of national identities; the mania to collect. It's also about the world seen from the rear view mirror of Grand Theft Auto V; digital ornament and why we value imperfection. It's about drinking a bruisingly dry martini in Adolf Loo's American bar in Vienna, and about Hitchcock's film sets. It's about fashion and technology, about politics and art.

After critiquing—and infuriating—the art world with The Painted Word, award-winning author Tom Wolfe shared his less than favorable thoughts about modern architecture in From Bauhaus to Our Haus. In this examination of the strange saga of twentieth century architecture, Wolfe takes such European architects as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus art school founder Walter Gropius to task for their glass and steel box designed buildings that have influenced—and infected—America’s cities.

Meetings don’t have to be painfully inefficient snoozefests—if you design them. Meeting Design will teach you the design principles and innovative approaches you’ll need to transform meetings from boring to creative, from wasteful to productive. Meetings can and should be indispensable to your organization; Kevin Hoffman will show you how to design them for success.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

In the mid-twentieth century, Henry Dreyfuss—widely considered the father of industrial design—pioneered a user-centered approach to design that focuses on studying people's behaviors and attitudes as a key first step in developing successful products. In the intervening years, user-centered design has expanded to undertake the needs of differently abled users and global populations as well as the design of complex systems and services. Beautiful Users explores the changing relationship between designers and users and considers a range of design methodologies and practices, from user research to hacking, open source, and the maker culture.

The essential guide to the story of London's acclaimed museum - from its origins in the 1980s to its pivotal move in 2016 London's Design Museum is entering an exciting period in its life as it prepares to move to the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. The Story of the Design Museum charts the story of the museum's life from its inception as the Boilerhouse Project to twenty-five years of groundbreaking exhibitions at Shad Thames. The book begins with a foreword by the founder of the Design Museum Sir Terence Conran, and concludes with an essay from the museum's architect, John Pawson, accompanied by stunning images of the iconic and newly renovated Commonwealth Institute Building, the museum's new home.