Customer Reviews

Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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We have designed ourselves into a (proverbial) corner. Shedroff's book masterfully walks through the various aspects of design and provides tangible methods to improve the sustainability, impact and benefits of our designed world.

I thought this book might only cover industrial and product design, but the scope includes so much more. This book will open your eyes to the possibilities of an inevitably sustainable future. A must for any designer.

ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK. It goes so much deeper than any other of the books i've read on sustainability and design. I am a professor and sharing this book with students has been a great way to teach them to approach design in a more thoughtful way.

The real-world examples are helpful and the language comprehensive. Am recommending this book to all of my friends!

This book provides designers of all stripes - and other people responsible for bringing products to the market - with a solid introduction to sustainability issues. Shedroff provides enough details to be substantive, but not too many to lose his general audience. As somebody not trained in industrial design, I found this book a fun introduction to many aspects of industrial design. Additionally, Shedroff gives readers a good start in systems thinking.

I do not always enjoy Shedroff's writing style, and I think this book needed better editing, but Shedroff has helped me think in new and broader ways about design decisions.

This book provides a much needed overview and clarification of how designers can act sustainably. It summarizes many existing systems for sustainable design, like cradle to cradle and LCA. It shows examples of how to assess and understand the impacts of actual products. Shredoff's asserts that most "systems" for sustainable design are limited. They have their pros and cons. He also points out LCA's difficulty and potential for inaccuracy or lack of completeness. But while he tells designers that there is a lot they can't know, he also provides concrete, simple steps designers can take every day to act more sustainably, without a using constraining system. The book is also full of his valuable insights into sustainable design. This an important and MUCH needed contribution to design practice.

The book is poorly edited, and the illustrations and data are confusing and in some cases slightly misleading. That is a drawback. Designers need clarity. If you are teaching with this book, you need to discuss some of these details. I hope he will create a second edition with more rigorous examples and data evaluation- and clearer illustrations. When Shedroff speaks from his heart- as in his analysis of the Segway- this book shines. In some cases he is less directly critical, and holds data and analysis to a less high standard. That is unfortunate. The evaluation of the flower pot comes to mind. I spent a long time looking at this- trying to figure out what the term organic referred to. I finally came to the conclusion that the evaluation included the PLANT- making it appear greener than it is. That is a bit like including the baby in an evaluation of car seat.

Exceptional. If you want a book on sustainability, this is it. Design thinkers need this resource and I recommend it regularly to students and veteran designers. Nathan Shedroff enlightens by providing highly informed, relevant content in an accessible format to ensure we understand that sustainability is more than just an environment equation. An important contribution to improved decision making!