Watches Tell More Than Time : Product Design, Information, and the Quest for Elegance

by Coates, Del

• ISBN13: 9780071362436
• ISBN10: 0071362436
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-09
• Publisher: MCG

Summary

The design of every product conveys certain information, and modern consumers are experts in reading the language of product design. Most of us can discern the different messages conveyed by a Rolex versus a Swatch, a Porsche versus a Hummer, a Kenneth Cole versus a Bally, or an iMac versus a Compaq. But whether we're talking watches, cars, shoes, personal computers, or any other mass-produced item, how many of us can say with any real conviction what differentiates a good design from a bad one, or exactly how the good design manages to tell its story so clearly and so well to so many people?
Design experts, psychologists, marketing theorists, and even French philosophers have wrestled with these questions for nearly a century. But few have provided more comprehensive or persuasive answers than international industrial design authority Del Coates has in this accessible book. Watches Tell More than Time is a much needed resource for shaping corporate design strategies, evaluating product designs at any stage of development or marketing - and optimizing them.

Author Biography

Del Coates is a professor of design in the world famous San Jose State University design department. He has worked as an industrial designer, on corporate staffs, and as a consultant on a broad range of product, including consumer products, furniture (as a member of the renowned Herman Miller design team), automobiles (he coined the product strategy and the name for Nissan Maxima), and computers (applying his methods, he contributed to the design of only the second computer to be added to the MOMA's permanent collection). Del lectures often and widely around the world, most recently this summer as an invited guest for DaimlerChrysler AG's research and development group, at the University of Sunderland in England, and at the ISATA Conference on Automotive Technology in Vienna. He teaches each summer at the University of Michigan's Human Factors Engineering Conference and chairs product design sessions at the Silicon Valley Ergonomics Institute's meetings. He writes a regular column for IDSA journal and has published a number of seminal articles in a variety of journals and professional publications. In addition to his teaching and speaking, Del consults to many of the world's top companies including Unisys, Daewoo, Mooney Aircraft, Nissan, General Motors, Peterbilt, Hewlett Packard, Rockwell International, Tandy, Black & Decker, Kodak, General Electric, NCR, Owens-Corning, Pitney Bowes, and Xerox.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
The Product Sea	p. 1
Design Priorities	p. 34
Daimons, Zeitgeists, and Icons	p. 53
From Bauhaus to Broadway	p. 83
Products as Media	p. 101
Form and Information	p. 122
States of Mind and Body	p. 161
Liking and Disliking	p. 179
Objective Concinnity	p. 191
Subjective Concinnity	p. 218
Winning Design	p. 241
Bibliography	p. 255
Credits	p. 265
Index	p. 267
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