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Confessions of a Generalist
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Niels Diffrient’s memoir detailing his career and life. Diffrient describes the book as “a dynamic communication product that avoids typical book limitations. In this design, all 268 illustrations are connected directly to the text at the point of their mention with captions that extend the topics. Applying the same intensity of usability as I do with all product design, my objective was to create a reading experience much like life—engaging both the intellect and the senses.”
Niels Diffrient, the master of design that fits the user, has written a book that fits his character. Best known for his ergonomic research and precepts, Diffrient is a modernist monument as much as Dieter Rams—he even looks like Rams.
Personal more than prescriptive, the book is heavily illustrated and full of fun anecdotes—including how Diffrient, while working on interiors for TWA, ran into Howard Hughes with Jane Russell beside him in his convertible.
Growing up in Detroit and dabbling in car design, Diffrient took many career turns before he became the master of ergonomics. He was born in 1928 in the small town of Star, Mississippi. The family soon moved to Detroit; his father worked on an assembly line and Diffrient never forgot it. He managed to find himself at Cranbrook Academy. He spent five years in the office of Eero Saarinen. By 1954, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship, he was in Italy, imbibing the high period of Italian modern design and learning from the likes of Marco Zanuso, with whom he collaborated on the Borletti sewing machine.
He spent a quarter of a century working with Henry Dreyfuss, as a designer and partner, during which time Diffrient was able to codify the Dreyfuss office’s early research in practical guides to ergonomics. Later, with his own company, Humanscale, he put these principles into practice with the design of office chairs. His years at Dreyfuss provided Diffrient with some of his best stories—how, for instance, for American Airlines he designed an inflight passenger lounge to be installed on the quick. He also worked on ideas for the never-built American rival to the supersonic Concorde, called the SST.
In Diffrient’s memoir, his work makes for useful case studies but also a lively personal narrative.
Announcements
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.
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.
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.
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.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
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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.”
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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