Writing design : words and objects / edited by Grace Lees-Maffei

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 without language. Bringing together a wide range of scholars and practitioners, Writing Design reveals the difficulties, ethics and politics of writing about design

Includes bibliographical references and index

Writing about stuff: the peril and promise of design history and ciriticism / Jeffrey L. Meikle -- Design criticism and social responsibility: the Flemish design critic K.-N. Elno (1920-1993) / Fredie Floré -- The metamorphosis of a Norwegian design magazine: nye bonytt, 1968-1971 / Kjetil Fallan -- Writing contemporary design into history / Stephen Hayward -- Thinking in metaphor: figurative conceptualizing in John Evelyn's Diary and John Ruskin's Stones of Venice / Anne Hultzch -- Regulating the body in army manuals and trade guides: the design of the First World War khaki service dress / Jane Tynan -- 'Vita' glass and the discourse of modern culture / John Stanislav Sadar -- Lewis Mumford's Lever House: writing a 'house of glass' / Ann Sobiech Munson -- Judging a book by its cover: or does modernist form follow function? / Polly Cantlon and Alice Lo -- Reading details: Caruso St. John and the poetic intent of construction documents / Mhairi McVicar -- Applying oral sources: design historian, practitioner and participant / Chae Ho Lee -- Fluid typography: construction, metamorphosis and revelation / Barbara Brownie -- Showing architecture through exhibitions: a taxonomical analysis of the first Venice Architecture Biennale (1980) / Léa-Catherine Szacka -- Design as a language without words: A.G. Fronzoni / Gabriele Oropallo -- On the legal protection of design: things and words about them / Stina Teilmann-Lock -- Text-led and object-led research paradigms: doing without words / Michael Biggs and Daniela Büchler

Description based on print version record

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