#1309 Design

Of course, for as long as there have been objects they have been designed. Yet design only [1] as a dedicated discipline in the 19th century and its literature and theory are still very much in its infancy. It is curious that [2] the increasingly prominent role that self-consciously designed commodities play in our everyday lives and in the way we define ourselves, the literature around the subject is hugely disappointing. In fact, beyond bland coffee-table books, it is barely there at all. Nikolaus Pevsner's Pioneers of Modern Design, a classic Hegelian text treating modernism as the inevitable [3] of a historical process, is, despite being first published in 1936 and hopelessly dated, still the key text. There have been [4] books, from quirky Bruno Munari (Design as Art) to deadpan Norman Potter (What is a Designer: Things, Places, Messages), and Deyan Sudjic's 2008 The Language of Things, [5] attempted a broader examination. Nevertheless there is surprisingly little critique, an almost complete absence of theory and little genuinely popular, compelling writing on the subject.