Writing Design Words and Objects

by Lees-Maffei, Grace

• ISBN13: 9781847889553
• ISBN10: 1847889557
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-17
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

How do we learn about the objects that surround us? As well as gathering sensory information by viewing and using objects, we also learn about objects through the written and spoken word - from shop labels to friends' recommendations and from magazines to patents. But, even as design commentators have become increasingly preoccupied with issues of mediation, the intersection of design and language remains under-explored. Writing Design provides a unique examination of what is at stake when we convert the material properties of designed goods into verbal or textual description. Issues discussed include the role of text in informing design consumption, designing with and through language, and the challenges and opportunities raised by design withoutlanguage. Bringing together a wide range of scholars and practitioners, Writing Designreveals the difficulties, ethics and politics of writing about design.

Author Biography

Grace Lees-Maffei is Reader in Design History in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire and is co-editor of The Design History Reader (Berg, 2010).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Contributors	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xv
Introduction: Writing Design	p. 1
Righting Design-on the Reforming Role of Design Criticism
Introduction	p. 19
Writing about Stuff: The Peril and Promise of Design History and Criticism	p. 23
Design Criticism and Social Responsibility: The Flemish Design Critic K.-N.Elno (1920-1993)	p. 33
The Metamorphosis of a Norwegian Design Magazine: nyebonytt, 1968-1971	p. 47
Writing Contemporary Design into History	p. 63
Mediations-Between Design and Consumption
Introduction	p. 77
Thinking in Metaphor: Figurative Conceptualizing in John Evelyns Diary and John Ruskin's Stones of Venice	p. 81
Regulating the Body in Army Manuals and Trade Guides: The Design of the First World War Khaki Service Dress	p. 93
'Vita Glass and the Discourse of Modern Culture	p. 103
Lewis Mumford's Lever House: Writing a 'House of Glass'	p. 119
Designing Vim and Through Language
Introduction	p. 133
Judging a Book by its Cover: Or Does Modernist Form Follow Function?	p. 135
Reading Details: Caruso St John and the Poetic Intent of Construction Documents	p. 149
Applying Oral Sources: Design Historian, Practitioner and Participant	p. 163
Fluid Typography: Construction, Metamorphosis and Revelation	p. 175
Showing as Telling-On Design Beyond Text
Introduction	p. 189
Showing Architecture through Exhibitions: A Taxonomical Analysis of the First Venice Architecture Biennale (1980)	p. 191
Design as a Language without "Words: A G Fronzoni	p. 205
On the Legal Protection of Design: Things and Words about Them	p. 219
Text-led and Object-led Research Paradigms: Doing without Words	p. 231
Select Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 253
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