Customer Reviews

Design and the Elastic Mind

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The book presents the philosophy that design is an interface between humans and technology. This discussion is very clear but it then wanders into very abstract concepts of design and depicts many design exhibits at MOMA. A good portion of these examples i was unable to discern what interface they were addressing. All were visually captivating and occasionally engrossing. While these visual perambulations were enjoyable amd leading they did not connect me with any environment nor seem to "simplify" that environment.

In a lot of ways this book reminds me of many of the publications that have been put out by COLORS magazine. There is an eccentric encyclopedic quality that makes this book exciting from the very moment you touch. It's virtually impossible to do a random opening and not land on a page that has an element of surprise and novelty. A random opening for me took me to page 31 where I find "MyBio-Reactor Cows" created by Elio Caccavale. Another random opening takes me to "sketch furniture", where the furniture is exactly as it sounds: designed to look like literal 3D interpretations from loose pencil sketches (only the materials are white).

Despite the playful novelty of many of the artifacts presented here, there is a sobering perspective offered by the book. All of the work here seems to walk up to the line of diminishing return as far as science and technology goes. It's the line that divides productive progress from over-productive regression. The MyBio Dolls are such artifacts that present this distinction. For this reason, this is a very important book for anyone who is curious about what the future might look like and perhaps what it shouldn't look like.

My only criticism of the book is that it passes the point of diminishing return as far as Graphic Design is concerned. The layout and type setting is often slammed against the photography. Stylistically it's cool and thematically appropriate, but also fatiguing on the eyes. Some pages I simply couldn't read without working too hard, which I'm not willing to do -- so I didn't read them. It also results in several spreads in appearing just downright cluttered.

But that's my own [...] reaction, and other readers may have little to no issue with getting past such gratuities. These readers will find this book to be a gem. Others will enjoy the book too -- the parts they can read.

This book is a very useful compendium, and a help to better understand what seen in the MoMA Expo.

I liked the expo, and I like more the book.