Five Books for Design Students Going Back to University
Design is everywhere. It’s inside us, we sit on it, we eat it, it watches us, it influences our behaviour and tells us how to live our lives. It’s because our world is so complex that designers now need to break from the traditional knowledge and image of what their industry looks like. To break through to this other side they need to know more than just colour swatches and the inside of a CAD programme. They need to be able to place themselves and their work within our ever-twisting and changing reality.
Here are five books that can help expand the designer’s practice and cement their place in a future more adept at helping people instead of serving them.
Modes of Criticsm 5: Design Systems
Modes of Criticism is a design criticism journal based in Porto (Portugal). It was originally created as a platform for Francisco Laranjo’s research at the London College of Communication, evolving into a journal working towards the politicisation of design discourse and practice. Modes of Criticism is resident at the Shared Institute.
For the its latest edition, Modes of Criticism: Design Systems, dissects graphic design and the concepts of form that are profoundly rooted in it. Starting from a series of design research residencies in the context of the Porto Design Biennale, this volume proposes a variety of perspectives — social, cultural, political — to challenge this deeply engrained tradition.
This is the perfect book to read for anyone begining to study graphic design. It’s critique questions the form of the profession and in doing so allows space for its re-evaluation.
Ed: Francisco Laranjo
Authenticity?: Observations and Artistic Strategies in the Post-Digital Age
This is a book that asks the question:What does authenticity mean in a time where digital technology permeates every aspect of our lives?
“The everyday connotations of the original, the real, sincere, valid, historical or deep are well-known, and the opposite of the authentic may then be the superficial, false, not-what-it-seems, or just new. Nonetheless ‘the real thing’ is still a fruitful starting point to analyze changes in the post-digital society. Digital technology is embedded in almost every personal relationship, in labour conditions, and in aesthetic practices. What does this mean for the ‘authentic’? To unfold the nuances of the concept of contemporary authenticity this book aims to bring together different thinkers to reflect on the meaning of the authentic now. As a process and as a fluid and performative scheme to be enacted at any time — not just in terms of art and art making but flowing into every single nook of contemporary life, from the intimate to the public.”
eds: Barbara Cueto, Bas Hendrikx
Borrowing Positions: Role-Play Design & Architecture
This is a book that we couldn’t put down. As some parts of the design world take processes and practices from the arts without even the slightest nod to the lineage of thought that preceded it, it’s very refreshing to find a publication based on such generosity.
“Borrowing Positions: Role-Playing Design & Architecture is a speculative book which reflects on the design- and architecture-centred LARPs (Live Action Role-Plays) organized by the Trojan Horse collective. The book is an exploration of Live Action Role-Play as a design and architecture research tool. By inviting the reader to try on different characters, switch roles and reconsider their everyday practices, the book explores issues such as identity, performativity, gender, colonialism, care responsibilities and fear in the context of architecture, design and urban planning.
The book consists of three parts: an overview of previous LARPs and their theoretical background; reflections (essays, visual essays and interviews) on LARP-related issues; and a practical (DIY) section — a step-by-step guide on how to organize your own design LARP.
Contributors to the book vary from architecture and design practitioners to performance artists working with role-play and fiction. The book will be of interest to anyone interested in inderdisciplinary practices in design and architecture.”
eds: Ott Kagovere, Kaisa Karvinen, Tommi Vasko
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
This book has been included to pay tribute to the author, David Graeber, who recently passed away. Now, I haven’t actually read but I’ve constantly been told to. So now, I recommend it to you in good faith knowing that whatever is inside it’ll inspire. And I assume, allow us to take a little more control over our lives as we define bullshit jobs.
Yet as he notes, people are not inherently lazy: we work not just to pay the bills but because we want to contribute something meaningful to society. The psychological effect of spending our days on tasks we secretly believe don’t need to be performed is profoundly damaging, “a scar across our collective soul”. — Eliane Glaser
Author: David Graeber
Tools for Conviviality
“I choose the term ‘conviviality’ to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this is in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the demands made upon them by others….I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectivly satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.”
This was written in 1973 and it seems, maybe more than ever, that we’re living in un-convivial times. Design won’t change the world but we can be more aware of our actions. We hope these books can be of some use to you during your studies.
Author: Ivan Illich
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