Design for Society

(Paperback)

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Description

In recent years the design industry has boomed, and has helped to create today's superficially more "caring" image. Yet the newsworthiness of design, this book argues, conceals an ignorance of the profession's values and ambitions - even among designers themselves. The author analyzes design's role within the consumer society and discusses what our obsession with it tells us about the present state of our own culture. The book is not anti-design, but rather anti-consumerist, in that it sets out to expose what many people would agree are the socially and ecologically unsound values on which the system of consumerist design is contructed. Whiteley reviews the implications for design of the Green movement, the growing impact of feminism, and the ideas of "socially responsible" designers. In doing so he prepares the ground for a more self-aware and just development of design.

Reviews

`A very good summary of the current social, ecological, and feminist critiques of design... makes a valuable contribution to the current debate over design... an invaluable source for students and tutors as well as designers' - Journal of Design History.

Author Bio

Nigel Whiteley is Head and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Lancaster. He is the author of Pop Design (1987), and co-editor of The Lamp of Memory: Ruskin, Tradition and Architecture (1992).