Overview

A pocket history of product design from the birth of cities to the digital design revolution. This cultural history critically examines the development of product design, considering major milestones in the mass production of goods and services and aiming to incorporate a more inclusive worldview than traditional surveys of the topic. The breadth and versatility of product design throughout history have been profound. Products have long supported the integration and interpretation of emerging technologies into our lives. These objects include everything from tools, accessories, furniture, and clothing to types of transportation, websites, and mobile applications. Products provide singular or multiple functions, are tangible and intangible, and in many instances have affected the quality of our lives by saving time or money or by increasing feelings of personal satisfaction. At the same time, many products have negatively affected people and the environment. For nearly every product that makes it into the hands of a consumer, there is also a designer who created it and someone who labored to make it. An eye-opening survey of product design from preindustrial times to the present day, Product Design, Technology, and Social Change provides a thorough examination of the relationship between products, consumption, sustainability, politics, and social movements.

Full Product Details

9781835950234

Table of Contents

Reviews

'This book is timely and will be extremely useful to teachers of design and technologies in secondary schools and as an introduction to product design in tertiary settings.... The design narrative embedded in the book has many mapped twists and turns that occurred throughout history. Very few current texts include the storied lives of both the designers and industrial manufacturing producers and the impacts they had on craftspeople, skilled workers. Together all these people tell the story as they all respond to scientific discovery, social and cultural change and associated political drivers. I highly recommend this book to all visual art educators who work in the areas of product design and visual art curriculum to build student knowledge of the way social values are embedded in all product design and consumer behaviours.' -- Kathryn Grushka, International Journal of Education Through Art

Author Information

Laura Scherling, Ed.D., is a designer, researcher, and educator. She is a director and adjunct faculty member at Columbia University, USA. 

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