schneiderism

This book is not fetishistic, as many logo and identity books tend to be. Design Matters // Logos, by the team at Capsule, is an excellent and methodical review of the thinking, process and decision making behind a series of very successful identities created by a diverse group of designers (from Futurebrand to Sagmeister). The subtitle “An Essential Primer For Today’s Competitive Market” gives this away. I appreciate and find it fascinating to see what designers and design teams worked through to get to the end result, to be privy to the strategy behind something as mistakenly subjective as a logo. Each identity reviewed is broken down into these sections:

• Introduction - a brief overview of the situation and the objectives
• Planning - the foundational work leading up to design
• Creating - details related to the development of the identity
• Implementing - how the identity was introduced and executed

It is an incredibly informative book, as well as being very well designed. Beautiful, really. The organization and information contained within lend themselves to repeat reading, and it is the kind of book that becomes a frequent resource for a review on identity strategy and inspiration. I found the extensive section on planning to be of particular value, given my penchant for strategy and well-developed rationale, and is something that any team setting out to create identity would benefit from reading… especially pages 36-37 which offers some great insights into navigating the complexities of the research process.

Full disclosure, I received this book from Rockport Publishers. I love free books, when they are good, and I recommend this one without hesitation and will be keeping it in my “active” stack of books. It rocks.

I have been reading a newish book from Japanese designer Kenya Hara, which came to me as an incredibly thoughtful gift. “Designing Design”, which is excellent, is not so much a portfolio or biography as much as a treatise on Hara’s philosophy of design, a philosophy that is both insightful and interesting, distinctive, and deeply immersive. His work is iconic in many ways, but not because of anything remotely approaching a signature flourish. He places significant focus on how all of our senses are affected by design, which encompasses everything from objects to environments.

Inside his book are beautiful images of his work, as well as that of others who have collaborated with him or contributed to projects he has curated. The images provide important references to his ideas and observations, and they are well integrated. The book functions almost as an illustrated guidebook to Hara’s design philosophy, visually representing the application of his thinking. Also, the design of this book is superbly elegant and engaging:

As a designer, Hara’s work reflects thought and consideration that seems contradictory in that it is both minimalist and comprehensive. It is evident that this is not a person who takes design lightly, and perhaps considers it more of an epistemological exercise:

“The human brain likes anything that entails a great deal of information.”

Kenya Hara

The book is divided into chapters that individually and collectively investigate:

• - Re-Design - Daily Products of The 20th Century
• - Haptic - Awakening the Senses
• - Senseware - Medium That Intrigues Man
• - White
• - Muji - Nothing, Yet Everything
• - Viewing The World From The Tip of Asia
• - Exformation - A New Information Format
• - What is Design?