Graphic Design Theory is organized in three sections: "Creating the Field" traces the evolution of graphic design over the course of the early 1900s, including influential avant-garde ideas of futurism, constructivism, and the Bauhaus; "Building on Success" covers the mid- to late twentieth century and considers the International Style, modernism, and postmodernism; and "Mapping the Future" opens at the end of the last century and includes current discussions on legibility, social responsibility, and new media. Striking color images illustrate each of the movements discussed and demonstrate the ongoing relationship between theory and practice. A brief commentary prefaces each text, providing a cultural and historical framework through which the work can be evaluated. Authors include such influential designers as Herbert Bayer, L'szlo Moholy-Nagy, Karl Gerstner, Katherine McCoy, Michael Rock, Lev Manovich, Ellen Lupton, and Lorraine Wild. Additional features include a timeline, glossary, and bibliography for further reading. A must-have survey for graduate and undergraduate courses in design history, theory, and contemporary issues, Graphic Design Theory invites designers and interested readers of all levels to plunge into the world of design discourse.

Classic texts by thinkers from Althusser to Žižek alongside essays by leaders in interaction design and HCI show the relevance of critical theory to interaction design. Why should interaction designers read critical theory? Critical theory is proving unexpectedly relevant to media and technology studies. The editors of this volume argue that reading critical theory—understood in the broadest sense, including but not limited to the Frankfurt School—can help designers do what they want to do; can teach wisdom itself; can provoke; and can introduce new ways of seeing. They illustrate their argument by presenting classic texts by thinkers in critical theory from Althusser to Žižek alongside essays in which leaders in interaction design and HCI describe the influence of the text on their work. For example, one contributor considers the relevance Umberto Eco's “Openness, Information, Communication” to digital content; another reads Walter Benjamin's “The Author as Producer” in terms of interface designers; and another reflects on the implications of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble for interaction design. The editors offer a substantive introduction that traces the various strands of critical theory. Taken together, the essays show how critical theory and interaction design can inform each other, and how interaction design, drawing on critical theory, might contribute to our deepest needs for connection, competency, self-esteem, and wellbeing. Contributors Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell, Olav W. Bertelsen, Alan F. Blackwell, Mark Blythe, Kirsten Boehner, John Bowers, Gilbert Cockton, Carl DiSalvo, Paul Dourish, Melanie Feinberg, Beki Grinter, Hrönn Brynjarsdóttir Holmer, Jofish Kaye, Ann Light, John McCarthy, Søren Bro Pold, Phoebe Sengers, Erik Stolterman, Kaiton Williams., Peter Wright Classic texts Louis Althusser, Aristotle, Roland Barthes, Seyla Benhabib, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Arthur Danto, Terry Eagleton, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Wolfgang Iser, Alan Kaprow, Søren Kierkegaard, Bruno Latour, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, James C. Scott, Slavoj Žižek

A new approach to theory development for practice-driven research, proposing that theory is something made in and through design. Tendencies toward “academization” of traditionally practice-based fields have forced design to articulate itself as an academic discipline, in theoretical terms. In this book, Johan Redström offers a new approach to theory development in design research–one that is driven by practice, experimentation, and making. Redström does not theorize from the outside, but explores the idea that, just as design research engages in the making of many different kinds of things, theory might well be one of those things it is making. Redström proposes that we consider theory not as stable and constant but as something unfolding—something acted as much as articulated, inherently fluid and transitional. Redström describes three ways in which theory, in particular formulating basic definitions, is made through design: the use of combinations of fluid terms to articulate issues; the definition of more complex concepts through practice; and combining sets of definitions made through design into “programs.” These are the building blocks for creating conceptual structures to support design. Design seems to thrive on the complexities arising from dichotomies: form and function, freedom and method, art and science. With his idea of transitional theory, Redström departs from the traditional academic imperative to pick a side—theory or practice, art or science. Doing so, he opens up something like a design space for theory development within design research.

The venerable cities of the past, such as Venice or Amsterdam, convey a feeling of wholeness, an organic unity that surfaces in every detail, large and small, in restaurants, shops, public gardens, even in balconies and ornaments. But this sense of wholeness is lacking in modern urban design, with architects absorbed in problems of individual structures, and city planners preoccupied with local ordinances, it is almost impossible to achieve. In this groundbreaking volume, architect and planner Christopher Alexander presents a new theory of urban design which attempts to recapture the process by which cities develop organically. To discover the kinds of laws needed to create a growing whole in a city, Alexander proposes here a preliminary set of seven rules which embody the process at a practical level and which are consistent with the day-to-day demands of urban development. He then puts these rules to the test, setting out with a number of his graduate students to simulate the urban redesign of a high-density part of San Francisco, initiating a project that encompassed some ninety different design problems, including warehouses, hotels, fishing piers, a music hall, and a public square. This extensive experiment is documented project by project, with detailed discussion of how each project satisfied the seven rules, accompanied by floorplans, elevations, street grids, axonometric diagrams and photographs of the scaled-down model which clearly illustrate the discussion. A New Theory of Urban Design provides an entirely new theoretical framework for the discussion of urban problems, one that goes far to remedy the defects which cities have today.

Digital Design Theory bridges the gap between the discourse of print design and interactive experience by examining the impact of computation on the field of design. As graphic design moves from the creation of closed, static objects to the development of open, interactive frameworks, designers seek to understand their own rapidly shifting profession. Helen Armstrong's carefully curated introduction to groundbreaking primary texts, from the 1960s to the present, provides the background necessary for an understanding of digital design vocabulary and thought. Accessible essays from designers and programmers are by influential figures such as Ladislav Sutnar, Bruno Munari, Wim Crouwel, Sol LeWitt, Muriel Cooper, Zuzana Licko, Rudy VanderLans, John Maeda, Paola Antonelli, Luna Maurer, and Keetra Dean Dixon. Their topics range from graphic design's fascination with programmatic design, to early strivings for an authentic digital aesthetic, to the move from object-based design and to experience-based design. Accompanying commentary assesses the relevance of each excerpt to the working and intellectual life of designers.

Explore Level Design through the Lens of Architectural and Spatial Experience Theory Written by a game developer and professor trained in architecture, An Architectural Approach to Level Design is one of the first books to integrate architectural and spatial design theory with the field of level design. It explores the principles of level design through the context and history of architecture, providing information useful to both academics and game development professionals. Understand Spatial Design Principles for Game Levels in 2D, 3D, and Multiplayer Applications The book presents architectural techniques and theories for level designers to use in their own work. The author connects architecture and level design in different ways that address the practical elements of how designers construct space and the experiential elements of how and why humans interact with this space. Throughout the text, readers learn skills for spatial layout, evoking emotion through gamespaces, and creating better levels through architectural theory. Create Meaningful User Experiences in Your Games Bringing together topics in game design and architecture, this book helps designers create better spaces for their games. Software independent, the book discusses tools and techniques that designers can use in crafting their interactive worlds.

Meredith Davis draws on her many years' experience teaching graphic design students to explain complex theories with total clarity, encouraging readers to evaluate existing design work critically, and to use theoretical frameworks to enhance their own studio practice.

Despite the proliferation of video games in the twenty-first century, the theory of game design is largely underdeveloped, leaving designers on their own to understand what games really are. Helping you produce better games, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games presents a bold new path for analyzing and designing games.

Organizations must adapt to changing and often challenging environments. This third Canadian edition helps students understand and design organizations for today’s complex environment. The concepts and models offered in this text are integrated with changing events in the real world, presenting the most recent thinking and providing an up-to-date view of organizations. Detailed Canadian examples and cases capture the richness of the Canadian experience, while international examples accurately represent Canada’s role in the world.

This textbook presents the core of recent advances in design theory and its implications for design methods and design organization. Providing a unified perspective on different design methods and approaches, from the most classic (systematic design) to the most advanced (C-K theory), it offers a unique and integrated presentation of traditional and contemporary theories in the field. Examining the principles of each theory, this guide utilizes numerous real life industrial applications, with clear links to engineering design, industrial design, management, economics, psychology and creativity. Containing a section of exams with detailed answers, it is useful for courses in design theory, engineering design and advanced innovation management. "Students and professors, practitioners and researchers in diverse disciplines, interested in design, will find in this book a rich and vital source for studying fundamental design methods and tools as well as the most advanced design theories that work in practice". Professor Yoram Reich, Tel Aviv University, Editor-in-Chief, Research In Engineering Design. "Twenty years of research in design theory and engineering have shown that training in creative design is indeed possible and offers remarkably operational methods - this book is indispensable for all leaders and practitioners who wish to strengthen theinnovation capacity of their company." Pascal Daloz, Executive Vice President, Dassault Systèmes