What is a Designer

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Norman Potter

Hyphen Press, London, 2002 (4th ed.), 1989; originally published 1969

Nonfiction, Graphic Design

ISBN: 9780907259169

From the Publisher. What is a designer proposes what design could be: there is no question mark in its title. Potter’s book is unusual in combining elevated ideas with down-to-earth advice. The first edition was published by Studio Vista in 1969. The second edition, published by Hyphen Press in 1980, was a very different work: completely reset and with new chapters that doubled the book in extent. A third edition (1989) incorporated revisions and updatings, and included a new introduction in which Norman Potter considered his own position in the light of the tremendous changes of the 1980s: some sharp blows were delivered at "designer culture." Now, after the author’s death in 1995, the book is reissued in what must be a final edition: the outdated references again excised, to leave the enduring core of Potter’s arguments.

The three parts of the book are signalled visibly by a change of paper colour. The first part contains a sequence of quite general essays. A number of central ideas are discussed here. Design is essentially a useful and modest art. The designer is at the service of the community. These principles should animate education. Potter casts a critical and sceptical eye over the realities of design education. In the reference section the book stands apart from other literature on design, in its discussions of the processes of getting work done. Finally there is a set of appendixes, prodding the reader into thought and action.

The book has no visual illustrations. By this means it achieves a greater generality of reference and—true to its critical principles—avoids giving readers models for imitation.

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Massimo Pitis

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Not simple reading, this book questions the very basis of design practice. A must!

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