Win yourself a copy of Learning Curves, click here to find out how.

As most product designers and industrial designers would be aware there is a real shortage of good, high quality books on the topic of design sketching.

For many years designers were relying on the classic Presentation Techniques by Dick Powell. Presentation Techniques was certainly a great book for it’s time (and still is), however most copies were out of date for many years until a re-release was done around 2000. Then after many years of waiting for something new on the design sketching book front, in 2005 Design Sketching by Klara Sjolén and Erik Olofsson was released, an inspirational product design sketching book featuring twenty-four talented students from the Umeå Institute of Design. Hot on the heels of that came Sketching – Drawing Techniques For Product Designers by Koos Eissen and Roselin Steur and Analog Dreams by Michael DiTullo. While all of the above books are superb and provide various tips, tricks and techniques for improving your product design sketching, there was always a nagging feeling in the back of my mind there was something missing from them – what it is, I cannot specifically say.

When I received Learning Curves – An Inspiring Guide to Improve Your Design Sketching Skills by Allan Macdonald and Klara Sjolén I was elated to discover that this book has that “IT” which the others mentioned above are missing in some way. After several reading sessions, many flick throughs admiring the stunning sketches and pondering the great tips, and in between thinking ‘my god I need to polish my sketching skills’, I have come to believe that Learning Curves is probably the best design sketching book released in 20 years.

Learning Curves covers all the standard tips, tricks and techniques you would expect to find in a book dedicated to showing you how to improve your sketching skills. But where it is significantly different from most sketching books is that it actually assumes you have some level of sketching ability or at least that you are currently trying to develop a base level. Instead of focusing on starting completely from scratch, which many other sketching books do and Instead of belting you over the head with the basics, the book covers them quickly and succinctly, then moves through to medium and advanced skill areas.

Every page in Learning Curves is filled with beautiful sketches which sit along side paragraphs full of tips and tricks that are highly useful, informative and in most cases clearly answer some of those sketching questions many designers have argued over forever. Although what really makes the book great is that is doesn’t just force one persons point of view onto the reader, in fact it often presents various designers views, opposing points or ways of doing so readers can choose what works for them or the project they might be working on.

To achieve such an broad and, at the same time, deep exploration of design sketching, over 40 designers and sketching professionals contributed to the book. This means that everyone, whether a raw beginner or a seasoned professional can pick up Learning Curves and gain something from it. What is also really fantastic about the book is that instead of directly competing with the other design sketching books available it actually compliments them.

Learning Curves is an extremely well written and informative design sketching book that will assist product designers or industrial designers of any level to build and develop their design sketching skills.

Learning Curves will make a great addition to any designers book shelf and truly compliments the other sketching books that are available, while also providing fresh insights. You can order your copy directly from the design sketching website.

Win yourself a copy of Learning Curves, click here to find out how.

I have been known by many of my fellow designers to wax lyrical about the one things that I believe  every designer needs to be successful, great presentation skills. Designers are usually pretty talented at coming up with great sketches and ideas, but their presentation skills often leave a lot to be desired. The fact is that you can have all the amazing ideas you want. However if you lack the skills to be able to present your ideas to someone other than your mum, then it’s never going to happen. Your idea will be nothing more than, well an idea in your head. You can even have a fantastic fully realistic prototype, but if you can’t present it effectively and convince others of the value of your idea, again your out of luck.

Whether its a thirty second elevator pitch or a full blown hour long digital presentation you need to be able to convince at least one other person (preferably someone who can help you move your idea forward in some way) that your idea is fantastic. If you have this skill, to be able to effectively present your idea and make others as passionate about your idea as you, then you will get a long way as a designer.

Even if you are already a fantastic presenter (I know that my own presentation skills need polishing from time to time) you can always learn a thing or two more. So whether you are a presentation novice or a presentation pro I suggest you take a look at slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations.

When I first came across Slide:ology I had no ideas who Nancy Duarte actually was. And why would I? She is located in Silicon Valley, a fairly long way from Melbourne. However it turns out that Nancy Duarte and her design firm Duarte Design not only have a few big name clients, but she is actually considered an authority on presentation development and design, and the book really shows just how much she knows.

The focus of the book is about putting together excellent slides (or visual communication aids) that actually communicate rather than the other essential parts of a presentation, such as knowing what you are talking about or not uming or arring to much. That side of presentation really comes down to two things, a. know you tropic inside and out and b. practising you presentation till you are blue in the face.

While as a designer you are probably very comfortable creating graphics or designs for products or logos, you probably aren’t as good as you think you are at creating effective and meaningful slides for a presentation.

Here are five lessons from the book I think are worth highlighting.

1. You might have been told by your lecturer in design school or you last boss that you needed your logo or name/company name on every slide, you don’t. As the book says “The people who have come to hear you speak most likely know who you work for. Use your first and last slides to identify yourself or company”.

2. A slide with more than a few words is not a slide, it’s a document. Slides are visual aids. “The default template in PowerPoint is a slideument. This is not a visual aid; it is a document. Avoid two line titles when giving a presentation because of the distance the eye has to travel across the slide. In fact, consider doing a presentation with titles only”.

3. Create an audience persona before you start your slides/presentation. You probably how you often create personas of someone who might use your product. Well you can do the same for your presentations audience. By defining them you can mold your messages to them and therefore communicate more effectively.

4. Before you get all gung-ho in Power Point or your favourite graphics program sit down and sketch out your slides. Organise the presentation and reorganise until it has a logical flow.

5. Practice your presentations. Whether its in front of colleagues (or for students, classmates). “It’s important to test drive your presentation with colleagues before taking it it out on the road”.

Hopefully the above tips will assist you to improve your presentations and if you want to learn more then I suggest you get a copy of Slideology as it is a must have in the toolkit of any designer. Learn to present and communicate effectively and you will find that more of your design endeavours will succeed.

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations is available on Amazon and Fishpond.

A specialist discipline in itself, Packaging Design is in many cases as important as the product it houses, its about much more than just whacking the product in a box. Packaging not only shows off the product within or focuses the consumers attention on the packaging itself and allures to the wondrous product that might lie within, but also deals with a raft of issues including allowing effective product inventory/tracking, safe transportation of the product, keeping the product intact and much more.

For those who wish to learn more about the discipline of Packaging Design or want to be inspired by all manner of amazing and awe inspiring packaging designs from across the globe then Boxed and Labelled – New Approaches to Packaging Design is the book for you.

Boxed and Labelled kicks off with a few very insightful pages on the discipline of packaging design, starting with the history of packaging pre 20th Century and moving on into the development of packaging in the 21st Century. Readers are then given an excellent overview of what packaging design is about and the job of a packaging designer, which then culminates in a couple of paragraphs on the future of packaging, Smart Packaging. Smart Packaging is predicted to appear in the next 10 years and according to the book smart packaging “will include nanotechnology in many applications: for tamper evidence, pack integrity, safety and quality traceability and product authenticity”.

Once the more insightful and academic side of the book is over you then have a choice of seven areas (chapters) of packaging to peruse, each with their own introduction on what the area of the book is focusing on and why, plus a little bit more insight into various areas of packaging design. There’s Strip Tease (Sweet & Seductive), From Container to Content (Reuse, Reuse, Reuse), Shades of Green (Taking Responsibility), Modularity (Building an Experience), Scantily Clad (The Virtue of the Minimal), The Gilded Cage (Desire Wrapped Up) and The New (Old-Fashioned).

Although the huge range of packaging in the book does make it hard to identify an overarching common thread or theme running through out the book (apart from just packaging). I think that to choose the designs to be showcased the editors went for designs that use unique colour palettes combined with minimalist design, plus a liberal use of recyclable or reusable materials/containers.

A few of my favourites from the book include Gloji designed by Peter Kao, Bootleg designed by Turner Duckworth, Azita’s All-Most-All-American-Rubs designed by Michael Freimuth, Nike Clot Airforce One packaging designed by Clot & Nike and Hangerpak designed by Steve Haslip.

If you’re an Industrial Designer, Product Designer or Packaging Designer searching for a bit of inspiration for the packaging on your next project, then look no further than Boxed and Labelled. Full of a mix of amazing concept and real life packaging examples, this book will inspire you to create stunning packaging.

Boxed and Labelled – New Approaches to Packaging Design is available on Amazon and Fishpond.

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers is the first business book that is actually caters to designers and other visual people. Let me put it another way: If every business book was this well thought out and as highly visual, designers would be running the business world. It is the first business book I have seen that takes an all out visual approach to the business concepts being explored. Books such as Baked In started the trend with their nice illustrations and diagrams that were more designer oriented. Business Model Generation takes this to a whole new level. The entire book is full of well developed sketches and visual models that will really help designers get their head around business models.

I have previously been critiqued by several people from the business world for recommending “business” books that they do no consider to be true business books. However it is my belief that many of the books I have previously recommended are good intros to business books for designers. They give designers some basic concepts and grounding and get them comfortable with the world of business. However Business Model Generation is a business book that designers will enjoy and be comfortable with right out of the gate. It not only explores complex business concepts but actually makes it enjoyable for those of us who are visually inclined.

Creating a business model that works is central to creating a sustainable profitable  business whether it is a design studio, the next twitter or a pizza store. It is something that all entrepreneurs or designers thinking of starting a business need to wrap their heads around.

Business Model Generation explores everything from what a business model is and the parts that make one up through to how to successfully construct one, all in ways that designers will understand straight away – theres some of that funny business language mixed in there, but the sweet diagrams and visuals will break it down for you in no time.

Business Model Generation is divided into five sections:

Canvas – Defines what a business model is, shows you the basic building blocks of a business model and describes a tool for business model construction called the canvas.

Patterns – Looks at and breaks down several recently developed business models.

Design – Breaks down the building blocks you will need to use to design you robustness model.

Strategy – Looks at the environments business models exist in, how to evaluate a business model and managing more than one business model.

Process – Walks you through the process of designing a business model from the ground up.

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers provides a hugely visual framework for designers or other visually included people to understand and construct innovative business models. If there’s one business book designer’s interested in running their own business should be purchasing this year it’s, without a doubt, Business Model Generation.

You can grab a copy of Business Model Generation via Amazon or Fishpond.

Have you read Business Model Generation? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments.

After weekend of intense reading I have finally finished and had a chance to mull over English scientist and MD Lord Robert Winston’s most recent book Bad Ideas?: An Arresting History of Our Inventions.

When I first opened up Bad Ideas? I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was first made aware of Robert Wiston’s work through various popular science television programmes focusing on the Human Body. And it turns out that his area of expertise is in Fertility, not something I thought really provided fantastic base for writing a book on the history of invention. However once I got into Bad Ideas? I was pleasantly surprised to find most of his qualifications and previous experience actually made for a refreshening view on inventions and the development of humans throughout history.

The books underlying premise is largely to show that based on previous scientific inventions and discoveries, scientists need to open up and really engage with the public on new scientific endeavours. Interestingly in several parts of the book where Robert Wiston riffs on the above point you could have easily taken the word scientist and replaced it with designer and it would make a lot of sense.

The book goes on from the initial premise to explore human development and many of our inventions. From the use of flints and sharp stones as tools through to the development of agriculture, then steam power and various other modern achievements in various scientific fields.

While the book is primarily science focused there are still quite a few lessons that designers and engineers can walk away from the book with. Beyond broadening your view of the world of scientific discovery I believe another really interesting lesson designers can get from this book is that throughout history many ideas that appear the same have seeded across the globe independently of each other at the same or similar times.

There are other interesting lessons from history of the development of steam engines and printing presses in the book that designers would do well to heed as well. An interesting example is that many people who are first to develop/invent an idea or concept often aren’t the ones who are truly successful with it. It’s often those who take the original idea that has come before and improve it that are successful. We tend to think of this lesson these days in terms of Google (remember AltaVista?) or the iPod (MPMan anyone?) however it has been a recurring theme throughout history.

As each period of history and various inventions and developments are explored Robert Winston also shows us that many of the fantastic inventions of today can actually contribute to unforeseen and often large problems in the future. This was well demonstrated by his exploration of the development of writing and the printing press and there are countless other examples, both historic and modern throughout the book.

Approximately three quarters of the way through the book is where I think Robert Winston has come unstuck with what was shaping up to be an excellent text. At the 3/4 mark Robert Winston begins to show how the earliest human development and invention are now shaping the state of todays world and the resulting potential climate disasters and population problems. This progression in the book really goes back to his original premise of showing that based on previous inventions and discoveries, that scientists need to open up and really engage with the public on new scientific endeavours. At this point in the book Robert Winston solidly demonstrates that what he is saying is important. However I felt that the way his main point was suddenly and not at all subtly reintroduced, with Robert Winston launching straight into riffing on the same old climate change arguments (the one part of the book where it felt like he was barking up the same tree as everyone else), was clumsily done.

Bad Ideas?: An Arresting History of Our Inventions is well worth a read, I wouldn’t suggest you rush out and buy it, if you can borrow a copy at the library or off a friend you’d be better off. It does present a perspective on human invention and development that is refreshing and gives great insights into lessons both scientists and designers can learn from history and apply both today and as we move into the future. If you are inclined to purchase a copy then you can do so via Amazon or Fishpond.

There’s no shortage of marketing books out there in the world and as a designer it can be pretty difficult to know whats worth reading and what isn’t when you’re looking to learn about marketing. However there is one book which is an excellent up to date starting point for designers who want to learn about this realm – Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves by Alex Bogusky and John Windsor.

You probably noticed in the last paragraph that I said ‘up to date starting point’ and the reason for this is there are a huge amount of books out there on marketing that just don’t take into account recent developments in or views on marketing and product creation. Being a designer you need to be looking out for the latest in the space of product development so you can apply it to your practice, Baked In can certainly help.

After a shortish introduction to the current state (as well as a short history) of design, product creation, branding and what’s getting in the way of products that market themselves Alex and John jump into their 28 rules for baking the marketing right into the product.

The 28 rules like ‘knock down the walls’ or ‘broaden your definition of design’ all have a several paragraph explanation/story and then a ‘Recipe’. The ‘recipe’ is basically walking you through the rule and give you ideas and ways that you might implement it. Of course all the rules in the book are not applicable to every situation so basically you would pick and choose which ones apply to you or your company and implement those. This also means that Baked In will be an on going resource to refer back to as your company and its products change over time.

Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves is a worthwhile book to read, like several of the books reviewed here it is an easy read and business focused, but will provide any designer with a knowledge injection on the topic of marketing from outside their traditional sphere. The little illustrations throughout the book are a nice touch as well.

A final note: I recently noticed, (Baked In included) that a lot of business books I have read lately are now starting to incorporate nice illustrations that often act as info graphics as well or as small memory triggers. I think its pretty great and would like to see this continue. A couple of other books that I have seen this in include: Rework and Change by Design.

Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves is available via Amazon and Fishpond.

There are many business books you could potentially read if you are interested in starting your own design business (or a business of any kind). But there is one that I read recently that is a must for any creative who wants to start a business as it provides straight forward advice the you can actually use.

Rework by 37Signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson is pitched as turning conventional business wisdom (write a business plan, seek investors etc…) on it’s head. The funny thing was that when I read it, it all seemed like the most straight forward, logical and no nonsense way to do it  and I immediately wondered why someone hadn’t written such a straight forward, to the point book like this before on the subject.

The two founders of 37Signals, a company that creates cloud based software for collaboration, project management, contact tracking, organisation and communication for small businesses, have taken everything they have learnt so far in their business journey (turning 37signals into a successful business) and put it into this book. Rework covers how to start a business, how build a business and how to grow (or not grow) a business. The whole book is broken down into small, easily digestible sections, complete with simple and often amusing illustrations, that put forward one idea at a time, making it an easy read. The ideas inside it’s covers provide a great blueprint for designers (or anyone else) to follow in their business creation endeavors.

The traditional jargon you often find in business books has been dispensed with and the 95% of the book is in plain english (bar one or two pieces of software geek terminology, but that can be forgiven) making it even easier for anyone to quickly wrap their heads around the ideas and get into actually implementing them in their own business endeavour.

Rework is the sort of book you can just pick up and read random bits of when you are in need of inspiration or information. Alternatively it can be read from cover to cover (quickly too, I read it in a couple of hours) if you really want to get through the ideas and onto creating or working on your business. Rework is the kind of book you will refer to again and again as all the concepts within it just make sense and thus you don’t need to spend forever trying to unravel the web of jargon or mess of ideas traditionally present in books from this subject area.

Rework is an excellent resource for designers looking to start a business as it provides straight forward, easy to understand business advice from entrepreneurs who have successfully built a company by practicing what they preach. Put simply Rework is an indispensable book for any designer wishing to start a business.

Rework is available via Amazon or Fishpond.

Making Ideas Happen

I recently received an advance copy of the Scott Belsky’s (of Behance fame) new book Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality and I have to say straight up, after reading the first 10 pages I was already convinced that this is one of the most useful books ever written for creatives and for many creatives Making Ideas Happen will be the singular most important book they will ever read.

The world is littered with the carcasses of thousands upon thousands of ideas, the majority of which starved and perished because the person or persons who conceived them lacked one key ability, which is the cornerstone of all successful creative endeavours, the ability to execute an idea or to make it happen.

Throughout their lives creatives are told (by parents, friends, teachers, mentors) that the most important things they can have are great ideas. The harsh truth, which is usually discovered when they take their ideas into the world, is that great ideas are a dime a dozen and everyone is creative. This is proved time and time again by the advent of new technologies or services like digital photography or Ponoko, that open a technology or service up to the masses and allow everyone to produce their ideas.

Basically the core of it is that anyone can have ideas and everyone can be creative. So now after completely destroying that beautiful dream world you were living in, I would like to tell you it’s not all bad news. There is way to be able to set yourself and your ideas apart from the masses once more and reclaim your beloved creativity crown.

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality outlines the need to learn how to execute your ideas successfully or to put in another way, develop the ability to be able to take your ideas and make them reality.

Scott Belsky, the man on the mission to organise the creative world (which he has helped do through a suite of fantastic products and services including Behance.net, The 99 Percent Conference, Action Method and now Making Ideas Happen), has distilled 6 years of research, information and learnings on how productive and successful creatives transform their ideas into reality, and collected it all together in one place as a motivating read that makes the process much easier for creatives to figure out.

Making Ideas Happen starts out with three core premises; that anyones capacity to execute ideas can be strengthened through being organised, it is important to nurture connections with your community, and that creatives must develop their leadership capabilities, to not only learn to lead others but more importantly to successfully lead and manage themselves.

Organisation is something most creatives simply are not good at, I myself flit from creative project to creative project, from idea to idea. But Making Ideas Happen has helped me get my act into gear and I am starting to see results, the first of which is working through the many design ideas I have, organising them and then actually getting on the road to producing them.

Another stigma addressed and explored in the book, that almost all creatives have, is the act of actually talking about their ideas. Creatives tend to be very secretive and protective about their ideas, which if everyone is having ideas is a completely unreasonable action because if others are discussing their ideas and developing them and your aren’t then you are already behind in the game. As revealed in the book, creatives should be actively discussing and sharing their ideas so that they can harness the power of collaboration and community.

As you are probably realising, Making Ideas Happen is about deconstructing the myths surrounding being a creative and using real life examples shows you tangible ways to harness the truths revealed to remake yourself into a highly organised, productive and successful creative.

The only problem I can foresee is now that Making Ideas Happen is out in the world, every creative who reads the book is going to be realising their ideas and actually creating their vision. Which means if you don’t read this book then you can kiss your creative success goodbye, because everyone that did read it is going to leave you in the dust with the carcasses of your unrealised ideas.

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality is to put it simply an amazing book. It will help creatives bring into realitiy the hundreds of ideas in the pages of their sketchbooks through beautifully simple techniques and advice. My advice – borrow, beg, or buy a copy of Making Ideas Happen, asap, read it, then read it again and keep it handy for reference!

Making Ideas Happen is available via Amazon and Fishpond.

A sketch is something we are all “hard wired to receive” and if there is one person in the design space that knows this better than most it’s Michael DiTullo. Known to many through idsketching or Core77 as a sketching machine, Michael is the Design Director at Converse and is a regular contributor to the development of the design sketching practice of designers from across the globe.

After a decade of practicing Industrial Design and  years of giving designers sketching advice in various forms Michael has finally given designers everywhere an opportunity to not only see many of his best sketches complied in one book, but also much of his best sketching advice.

In his recently released book Analog Dreams – Sketches of Michael DiTullo, you will find a curated collection of Michael’s inspiring sketches and thoughts on his sketching philosophy, design philosophy and creative process.

While many sketching books delve into the actual mechanics of sketching in a how to style, Analog Dreams is the ‘Learn to speak [insert applicable language here]‘ equivalent of sketching books. It looks at sketching through a much more considered perspective that takes into account the fact that sketches are a visual language, that can allow designers to “show someone what [they] imagine”, that like any language must be learnt, practiced and developed through total immersion for the speaker to be fluent.

Michael touches on some fantastic ideas in the book that will help your sketching improve dramatically including the idea that “to fluently communicate ideas visually you must truly understand the world those ideas exist in”. He also discusses how much work it truly takes to be fluent in the language of sketching and shares the elements of a great sketch.

Analog Dreams is a fantastic blend of a decade of Michael DiTullo’s compelling ideas, represented through the visual language of sketching, and practical high level sketching advice. It deserves pride of place amongst the sketching books on any designers bookshelf.

Analog Dreams – Sketches of Michael DiTullo by Michael DiTullo is available via Blurb.

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams edited by Keiko Ueki-Polet & Klaus Kemp is available on Amazon.

In November 2008 an exhibition focusing on the work and design ethos of Dieter Rams began at the Suntory Museum in Osaka, Japan. The exhibition is touring four Museums in Japan and Europe (2 in Japan, 1 in London and 1 in Germany). As an offshoot of this exhibition Keiko Ueki-Polet & Klaus Kemp have curated a beautifully produced book that looks at the full gamut of Dieter Rams’ work. While the book and exhibition do focus largely on Dieter Rams it is important to note that they are as much about celebrating Dieter and his work as they are about celebrating Braun design.

Aesthetically Less and More speaks as much about Dieter Rams’ work as the words and pictures within – the outside is a plain white cover that has a grey outer protective sleeve. While the inside is a mix various paper stocks including a heavier paper stock for the colour photos and a very light paper stock for text, that is almost translucent. The lighter stock is also utilised in several parts of book to illustrate the original sketch overlaid onto a picture the final product. Giving it an element of elegance that many design books lack. It is fantastic to see a design book as it ought to be, designed to reflect the content and subject matter within.

Many other books that look at designers and their work focus on being a coffee table book full of sexy design work. Less and More is so much more than your average coffee table book. It is a brilliant blend of photographs, sketches, models and essays written by the editors of the book, Dieter Rams and several other contributors from the various museums hosting the exhibition. Less and More reveals much more about Dieter Rams and his work than most other books focusing on a designer and their work normally would.

While the exhibition is the starting point for the book and is discussed first up, it is by no means the end point. The book goes on to explore various aspects of Dieter’s amazing work, beginning of course with his early and legendary work with the Braun team.

After a couple of introductory essays on the exhibition and design in Germany in the first half of the 20th century, the reader is thrust into well over 200 pages of full page full colour photographs, detail and holistic shots (some with drafting measurements added), of the earliest work of Braun. This chapter entitled New Generation of Design: Continuity and Change shows the evolution of Braun design and Dieter Rams’ design from 1949 to 1986. Through this visual timeline we are shown the transition from the design work of Artur Braun and other Braun designers to the design work of Dieter Rams. By the end of the chapter we see Dieters work dominating at Braun and then a subtle shift from solely Braun work to some of Dieters other work for the likes of Vitsoe and fsb.

Following on from this we are taken even further back to look at Dieter’s early years in an essay that “attempt[s] to comprehend the conditions, relationships and developmental linage of the services Dieter Rams provided in the early years of his career”. This essay transitions the reader into the fantastic sketch and photograph overlays I mentioned earlier. The book then moves into several hundred additional photographs and another timeline of Dieter’s and Braun’s work. The final part of the book is reserved for several brilliant essays on design, Dieter Rams, Braun design and german design that will keep even the most zealous design intellectual or widely read designer happy.

This book is a must for any designer. It provides a holistic look at Dieter Rams, Braun and their design work in a beautiful constructed and well curated volume that will be an excellent addition to any designers bookshelf. The photographs within will be enjoyed by those looking for visual inspiration, while the high quality essays will keep any design intellectual thinking.

Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams edited by Keiko Ueki-Polet & Klaus Kemp is available on Amazon.