Category Archives: Book Reviews

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to get a laptop from a concept to your hands, The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer by BusinessWeek writer Steve Hamm is the book for you. Continue reading Review: The Race For Perfect >>

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I have to admit: I don’t follow the latest in graphic design, and don’t know many of the big names in the field. So a lot of the people Debbie Millman interviews in How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer were new to me, but no matter; they are fascinating interviews nonetheless. Continue reading Review: How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer >>

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For as much as designers like to use the iPod as an example, seven years after its launch, we’re still as a group mostly ignorant of how it was made. There is still a mystique around it. Enter The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness by Steven Levy. Continue reading Review: The Perfect Thing >>

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Despite a panning review in the New York Times and scoffs from Joel Spolsky, I really enjoyed Outliers: The Story of Success by New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, who is also the author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Continue reading Review: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell >>

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Most books about industrial design fall into two camps. On one side are the books that are pure eye candy: coffee-table like tomes with beautifully-lit product shots. On the other side are books like Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design which, while valuable, are also technical and not for the casual reader. In the middle is the book Process: 50 Product Designs from Concept to Manufacture. Continue reading Review: Process >>

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This isn’t a review of the writing/drawing instrument, but rather The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by Henry Petroski. I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I enjoyed Petroski’s other book The Evolution of Useful Things and… Continue reading Review: The Pencil >>

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Nicholas Carr has written an important, yet readable, book in The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. It’s a book that, if the thesis is true, (and I suspect it is) it will have vast implications for those of us working in the technology and product design fields. Continue reading Review: The Big Switch >>

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