Skip to content
Home/ New Designer: Rejecting Myths, Embracing Change
New Designer: Rejecting Myths, Embracing Change

New Designer: Rejecting Myths, Embracing Change

by Lima, Manuel
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780262047630 The MIT Press

How to develop an ethical design practice and build a better world.

The choices made by designers have a significant effect on the world. Yet so much of the discourse on design focuses on aesthetics rather than ethics. In The New Designer, acclaimed author Manuel Lima aims to change this by challenging common myths and preconceptions about what comprises good design. He argues that designers must take responsibility for the personal, societal, cultural, and environmental impact of their work, rather than simply following a standard template.

As he covers fields ranging from graphic design to industrial design to user-experience design, Lima identifies the major steps that designers must take to be a force for good in the world. Rather than sticking to outmoded ideas about perfectionism and individual genius, designers must work together to tackle some of the most challenging questions of the twenty-first century. How do you make room for humanity, with all its wondrous variations, in a society increasingly driven by metrics, algorithms, and profit? How can ecologically responsible designers consider a product's entire life cycle and look well into the future? And how can designers better respond to a community's local needs while taking advantage of global networks?

Blending approaches derived from ethics, psychology, economics, and ecology, The New Designer is a vital, field-changing treatise that will appeal to any reader who seeks to understand design's massive influence on the contemporary world.

About the author

Product details

BrandThe MIT Press
Pub dateMay 2, 2023
ISBN-100262047632
ISBN-139780262047630
Hardcover280.0 pages
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.25 × 0.87 × 6.31 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-08-07 04:50
$21.06 $29.95 29% off
You save $8.89 · list price $29.95
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from History & Criticism
See all
Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World
Raden, Aja
$13.47
Man-Made: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right
Reuther, Karen Korellis
$22.48
Beauty of Everyday Things
Yanagi, Soetsu
$12.09
Sex and Unisex: Fashion, Feminism, and the Sexual Revolution
Paoletti, Jo B
$21.96
Impossible Arises: Oscar Reutersvärd and His Contemporaries
Mortensen, Chris
$49.39
California Design, 1930-1965
<b>The first comprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design, generously illustrated.</b><p>In 1951, designer Greta Magnusson Grossman observed that California design was "not a superimposed style, but an answer to present conditions.... It has developed out of our own preferences for living in a modern way." California design influenced the material culture of the entire country, in everything from architecture to fashion. This generously illustrated book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the first comprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design. It begins by tracing the origins of a distinctively California modernism in the 1930s by such European émigrés as Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, and Kem Weber&#x3b; it finds other specific design influences and innovations in solid-color commercial ceramics, inspirations from Mexico and Asia, new schools for design training, new concepts about leisure, and the conversion of wartime technologies to peacetime use (exemplified by Charles and Ray Eames's plywood and fiberglass furniture).</p><p>The heart of <i>California Design</i> is the modern California home, famously characterized by open plans conducive to outdoor living. The layouts of modernist homes by Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, and Raphael Soriano, for example, were intended to blur the distinction between indoors and out. Homes were furnished with products from Heath Ceramics, Van Keppel-Green, and Architectural Pottery as well as other, previously unheralded companies and designers. Many objects were designed to be multifunctional: pool and patio furniture that was equally suitable indoors, lighting that was both task and ambient, bookshelves that served as room dividers, and bathing suits that would turn into ensembles appropriate for indoor entertainment.</p><p><i>California Design</i> includes 350 images, most in color, of furniture, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, graphic and industrial design, film, textiles, and fashion, and ten incisive essays that trace the rise of the California design aesthetic.</p><br>The first comprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design, generously illustrated.<br>Wendy Kaplan is Department Head and Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.<br>This book beautifully documents how climate, immigration, and industry influenced California's modern design aesthetic.--<i>Publishers Weekly</i>--<br><p>...[F]ascinating stuff, rich with detail and new discoveries.</p>--<i>NZ House and Garden</i>--<br>
$65.95