Alice Rawsthorn

Critic; Writer; Lecturer / Architecture; Fashion Design; Graphic Design; Interior Design; Product Design / United Kingdom /

www.alicerawsthorn.com / www.facebook.com/alice.rawsthorn / www.twitter.com/alicerawsthorn

10 Great Books on Product Design

The toughest thing about choosing ten great books on product design was whittling down the long list. Product design may not have as erudite or provocative a critical culture as graphics or architecture, but it is so rich and complex a subject that it has inspired some wonderful books. . . . View the complete text

Some are monographs, of course. I chose one of my favorites—Sergio Polano’s study of the great Italian designer Achille Castiglioni. I could happily have added many more, such as Dieter Rams’s Less and More and Irma Boom’s beautifully designed survey of the history of Royal Tichelaar Makkum, the venerable Dutch ceramics manufacturer.

At a time when product designers are grappling with the challenge of transforming their way of working to embrace sustainability and inclusivity, it seems impossible not to include the book that anticipated those movements some 40 years ago, Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World. The same can be said for two very different design manifestos: Christien Meindertsma’s Pig 05049, a stellar example of intellectually adroit, yet fully functional conceptual design; and Jasper Morrison’s A World Without Words.

Irma Boom’s eponymous mini-book on her work as a book designer is an exemplar of the book as an impeccably designed object, just as Reyner Banham’s Design by Choice is a template for thoughtful and engaging design writing. Product design has also benefited from being interrogated by gifted writers and thinkers from other disciplines. This list includes wonderful books by a social scientist in Richard Sennett, a semiologist in Roland Barthes, and a philosopher in Robert Grudin. Again, there were many more to choose from, notably The Lunar Men, a fascinating study of the role of pioneering scientists, inventors, and industrialists in Britain’s Industrial Revolution by the cultural historian Jenny Uglow.

Some of my favorite product-design books didn’t set out to explore design at all, yet do so adroitly, like the veteran war reporter C.J. Chivers’s study of the development and deadly impact of the AK-47 in The Gun.

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Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

title a–z

2 books

Mythologies

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Roland Barthes

Still a darling of critical theorists, the French academic Roland Barthes was the subject of glowing essays in recent issues of both Artforum and Frieze. He was one of the most elegant and perceptive writers on late 20th-century product design or, more precisely, on the way in which we endlessly reinterpret the perceived meaning of objects. Mythologies is a collection of Barthes’s essays published first in 1957, and again in a new edition in 1970. . . . View the complete text

Pig 05049

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Christien Meindertsma

The problem with most conceptual design projects is that they’re more convincing in theory than practice. Pig 05049 is an inspired—and inspiring—exception, as a very rare example of a conceptual design in which the theoretical message is eloquently expressed by an end result, which also happens to be a fully functional product. . . . View the complete text

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Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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