Can someone send a copy of this to our studio in Italy….please…..
Warren Berger's gave his new book Glimmer the rather lofty subtitle “How design can transform your life, and maybe even the world.” We at Core77 are certainly biased, but there's no doubt that we're occasionally guilty of the same hyperbole. What the “design will change the world” camp often ignores is that major social problems they try to solve with design are just that, social problems; issues that involve a diverse range of constituencies, largely amoral economic forces and self-interested politics. Idealistic designers can't simply push “good” design into the marketplace, but often presume that transformative design can be done at the drafting table instead of understanding that manufacturing product is only the beginning (or maybe even that a manufactured product is the problem). Consequently , after reading a multitude of “Business = Design” books, this reviewer was thrilled to read the term “wicked problem” about halfway through. In the glossary, Berger defines wicked problems as “multifaceted and complex problems whose incomplete or contradictory nature is such that each attempted solution often seems to create a new problem.” Unlike many design books, Glimmer goes out of it's way to focus not only on designing objects for human interaction, but also to designing systems and structures for human behavior.
