The recent monograph, Abbott Miller: Design and Content, provides a wealth of evidence for seeing Miller as one of today’s exemplary designers. In my view, this is not for any set of particular projects or for any distinctive Miller style, but for the way he has oriented himself within the design field.
Are designers too wedded to a realist vision of today, and of tomorrow’s prospects? Are they complacent about design’s contributions to society? The answer to both is a resounding yes according to Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming.
With its obsession with creating the new and improving the old, design is naturally a field that is in constant flux. In the past decade, design has been grappling with its identity somewhat.
In order to deal with the ever-growing pile of design books on my desk, I have become more choosy about what to review. Some design books are simply gorgeous design objects, others contain insightful content.
Lester Brown, an American environmental analyst and founder of the Worldwatch Institute said:
The communications industry is the only agency possessing the capacity to convey the knowledge necessary for sustainable development to the required extent and in the timeframe we have at our disposal.
As part of a new series of interviews with authors, Andy Polaine interviews David Sherwin about the background to the writing of his successful and extremely useful book, Creative Workshop and the development of his new book, Success by Design to be published in November, 2012.
