This volume presents for the first time in English a curated selection of writings by the design thinker Gui Bonsiepe from the 1960s to the present day. Addressing as it does questions of non-Western design and a design practice that is both radical and democratic, Bonsiepe's work has assumed new importance for current debates inspired by global political and environmental crises. Structured into three sections, the anthology first addresses Bonsiepe's work on design theory and practice, particularly in relation to the history and contemporary relevance of the Ulm design school, where Bonsiepe was a professor in the 1960s. A second section then represents Bonsiepe's writings after his move to South America in the 1960s and '70s, where he worked as a design consultant for the Allende government in Chile before the military takeover. In writings from the period, Bonsiepe explores the concept of design 'at the periphery' and the relationship of national design traditions and practices in Latin American countries to those of 'the core' - Western European and American design. The final section comprises selections of Bonsiepe's writings on design in relation to literacy and language, visuality and cognition. This indispensable volume includes new interviews with Bonsiepe as well as his original, previously unpublished texts.

“Once one understands the nature and magnitude of defuturing as the negation of world futures, how one has to account for the history and making of the material world – including design - dramatically changes. Defuturing as our condition forces the generation of a new philosophy of design.” With these thoughts this book presents a radically new understanding of the history, context and futures of designing. First published in 1999, now reissued with a new preface by the author, Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy is a prescient and powerful account of what it means to comprehend that we live in world that is taking away futures for ourselves and non-human others. Arguing that designing is doubly implicated in this process, first in its roles in helping to create the unsustainable, but second, re-thought through the lens of defuturing, as a mode of acting in the world that can help contest the negation of the world, Defuturing transforms our comprehension of designing and of how futures can be constituted. Working not through abstract theorizing but through the analysis of concrete examples, the book uses historical material on design to expose the archaeology of defuturing. Shattering the illusion that the future simply “is”, Defuturing confronts designing with the challenge of remaking while offering the elements of a new practical reasoning of design acting.

The tumultuous twentieth century, told through the life of a single extraordinary woman Rejected by a series of publishers, abandoned in a chest for twenty years, Goliarda Sapienza's masterpiece, The Art of Joy, survived a turbulent path to publication. It wasn't until 2005, when it was released in France, that this novel received the recognition it deserves. At last, Sapienza's remarkable book is available in English, in a brilliant translation by Anne Milano Appel and with an illuminating introduction by Angelo Pellegrino. The Art of Joy centers on Modesta, a Sicilian woman born on January 1, 1900, whose strength and character are an affront to conventional morality. Impoverished as a child, Modesta believes she is destined for a better life. She is able, through grace and intelligence, to secure marriage to an aristocrat—without compromising her own deeply felt values. Friend, mother, lover—Modesta revels in upsetting the rules of her fascist, patriarchal society. This is the history of the twentieth century, transfigured by the perspective of one extraordinary woman. Sapienza, an intriguing figure in her own right—her father homeschooled her so she wouldn't be exposed to fascist influences—was a respected actress and writer who drew on her own struggles to craft this powerful epic. A fictionalized memoir, a book of romance and adventure, a feminist text, a bildungsroman—this novel is ultimately undefinable but deeply necessary; its genius will leave readers breathless.

A comprehensive introduction to designing services according to the needs of the customer or participants, this book addresses a new and emerging field of design and the disciplines that feed and result from it. Despite its intrinsic multidisciplinarity, service design is a new specialization of design in its own right. Responding to the challenges of and providing holisitic, creative and innovative solutions to increasingly complex contemporary societies, service design now represents an integrative and advanced culture of design. All over the world new design studios are defining their practice as service design while long established design and innovation consultancies are increasingly embracing service design as a key capacity within their offering. Divided into two parts to allow for specific reader requirements, Service Design starts by focusing on main service design concepts and critical aspects. Part II offers a methodological overview and practical tools for the service design learner, and highlights fundamental capacities the service design student must master. Combined with a number of interviews and case studies from leading service designers, this is a comprehensive, informative exploration of this exciting new area of design.

From the lost art of show-card writing and the tumultuous days of guerrilla magazine publishing to the latest in electronic leaflet design and hot magazine covers, acclaimed graphic designer and author Steven Heller provides dozens of stunning examples of how graphic design has transformed from a subset of pop culture to a cultural driving force on its own.

The architectural historian and critic Kenneth Frampton 'never recovered' from the force of Hannah Arendt's teaching at The New School in New York. The philosopher Richard J. Bernstein considers her the most perceptive political theorist and observer of 'dark times' (a concept which, drawing from Brecht, she made her own). Building on the revival of interest in Hannah Arendt, and on the increasing turn in design towards the expanded field of the social, this unique book uses insights and quotations drawn from Arendt's major writings (The Human Condition; The Origins of Totalitarianism, Men in Dark Times) to assemble a new kind of lexicon for politics, designing and acting today. Taking 56 terms – from Action, Beginnings and Creativity through Mortality, Natality, and Play to Superfluity, Technology and Violence – and inviting designers and scholars of design world-wide to contribute, Designing in Dark Times: An Arendtian Lexicon, offers up an extraordinary range of short essays that use moments and quotations from Arendt's thought as the starting points for reflection on how these terms can be conceived for contemporary design and political praxis. Neither simply dictionary nor glossary, the lexicon brings together designing and political philosophy to begin to create a new language for acting and designing against dark times.

This book is an essential contribution to the transdisciplinary field of critical design studies. The essays in this collection locate design at the center of a series of interrelated planetary crises, from climate change, nuclear war, and racial and geopolitical violence to education, computational culture, and the loss of the commons. In doing so, the essays propose a range of needed interventions in order to transform design itself and its role within the shifting realities of a planetary crisis. It challenges the widely popular view that design can contribute to solving world problems by exposing how this attitude only intensifies the problems we currently face. In this way, the essays critique the dominant modes of framing the meaning and scope of design as a largely Anglo-European 'problem-solving' practice. By drawing on post-development theory, decolonial theory, black studies, continental philosophy, science and technology studies, and more, the contributions envision a critical and speculative practice that problematises both its engagement with planet and itself. The essays in this collection will appeal to design theorists and practitioners alike, but also to scholars and students generally concerned with how the past and future of design is implicated in the unfolding complexity of ecological devastation, racial and political violence, coloniality, technological futures, and the brutality of modern Western culture generally.

'Disobedient Objects' is about out-designing authority. It explores the material culture of radical change and protest - from objects familiar to many, such as banners or posters, to the more militant, cunning or technologically cutting-edge, including lock-ons, book-blocs and activist robots. Where previous social movement histories have focused on large-scale events, strategies or biographies, this book - and the exhibition it accompanies - shows how objects themselves can be revolutionary.

A new perspective on design thinking and design practice: beyond products and projects, toward participatory design things. Design Things offers an innovative view of design thinking and design practice, envisioning ways to combine creative design with a participatory approach encompassing aesthetic and democratic practices and values. The authors of Design Things look at design practice as a mode of inquiry that involves people, space, artifacts, materials, and aesthetic experience, following the process of transformation from a design concept to a thing. Design Things, which grew out of the Atelier (Architecture and Technology for Inspirational Living) research project, goes beyond the making of a single object to view design projects as sociomaterial assemblies of humans and artifacts—“design things.” The book offers both theoretical and practical perspectives, providing empirical support for the authors' conceptual framework with field projects, case studies, and examples from professional practice. The authors examine the dynamics of the design process; the multiple transformations of the object of design; metamorphing, performing, and taking place as design strategies; the concept of the design space as “emerging landscapes”; the relation between design and use; and the design of controversial things.

Sitting down to write -- The writer's material -- Words -- Phrase to clause to sentence -- A dash through punctuation -- Thinking in diagrams -- Writing is argument -- Convincing -- Tone and voice -- Academic writing -- Writing long -- How to write to a person in admiration -- Business proposals and reports -- Copywriting -- Writing for social media