ILTweb: Study Space: Communication: Reference: Literature of Design (ROM)

Institute for Learning Technologies | Columbia University

Literature of Design

The literature of design is often framed within a specific context of practice, of which there are many -- engineering design, architectural design, industrial design, graphic design, software design, fashion design, and so on. Within such contexts, it also variously emphasizes what one might call the aesthetics of design, viewing it as a form of art, or the rationale of design, viewing it as way of applying knowledge to practice, or the dynamics of design, viewing it as a form of work or production. The literature that treats design comprehensively is remarkably sparse. The list that follows includes representative works from all these areas, seeking to provide a foundation for a considered general view.

American Center for Design. New Human Factors: American Center for Design Journal. 7:1(1993).

Rudolf Arnheim. Visual Thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

Clive Ashwin. History of Graphic Design and Communication A Sourcebook. London: Pembridge Press, 1983.

Wayne Attoe and Donn Logan. American Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Reyner Banham. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. 2nd edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1980.

Horace Barlow, Colin Blakemore, and Miranda Weston-Smith, eds. Images and Understanding: Thoughts about Images; Ideas about Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

George Basalla. The Evolution of Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

John Berger. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books, 1972.

Morris Berman. The Reenchantment of the World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981.

Jacques Bertin. Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps. William J. Berg, trans. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983

Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, eds. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987.

David P. Billington. Robert Maillart's Bridges: The Art of Engineering. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

David P. Billington. The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.

Albert Borgmann. Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Arno Borst. The Ordering of Time: From the Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer. Andrew Winnard, trans. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Susanne Bødker. Through the Interface: A Human Activity Approach to User Interface Design. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991.

Wolfgang Braunfels. Urban Design in Western Europe: Regime and Architecture, 900-1900. Kenneth J. Northcott, trans. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Lewis M. Branscomb, ed. Empowering Technology: Implementing a U. S. Strategy. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993.

Reuven Brenner. Betting on Ideas: Wars, Invention, Inflation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Kenneth A. Brown. Inventors at Work: Interviews with 16 Notable American Inventors. Redmond, WA: The Microsoft Press, 1988.

David Buisseret, ed. From Sea Charts to Satellite Images: Interpreting North American History through Maps. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Charles Burroughs. From Signs to Design: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.

Mark Nathan Cohen. Health and the Rise of Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

Mike Cooley. Architect or Bee? - The Human/Technology Relationship. Boston: South End Press, 1980.

Joseph J. Corn, ed. Imaging Tomorrow: History, Technology, and the American Future. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1986.

Ruth Schwartz Cowan. More Work for Mothers: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Gary Cross. Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Nigel Cross. Engineering Design Methods. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989.

Hubert L. Dreyfus and Stuart E. Dreyfus. Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition & Expertise in the Era of the Computer. New York: Free Press, 1988.

Susan Dunn and Rob Larson. Design Technology: Children's Engineering. New York: The Falmer Press, 1990.

M. David Ermann, Mary B. Williams, and Claudio Gutierrez, eds. Computers, Ethics, & Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Pelle Ehn. Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989.

Yaron Ezrahi. The Descent of Icarus: Science and Transformation of Contemporary Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Eugene S. Ferguson. Engineering and the Mind's Eye. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992.

Adrian Forty. Objects of Desire: Design & Society from Wedgwood to IBM. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

M. J. French. Invention and Evolution: Design in Nature and Engineering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Robert Friedel. Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994.

Mildred Friedman and Phil Freshman. Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989.

Jolene Galegher, Robert E. Kraut, and Carmen Egido, eds. Intellectual Teamwork: Social and Technological Foundations of Cooperative Work. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990.

Siegfried Giedion. Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1969.

Jean-Pierre Goubert. The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age. Andrew Wilson, trans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Joan Greenbaum and Morten Kyng, eds. Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991.

Paul Jacques Grillo. Form, Function, and Design. New York: Doer Publications, 1960.

David Guise. Design and Technology in Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1985.

Peter Hall. Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988.

Stephen S. Hall. Mapping the Next Millennium: The Discovery of New Geographies. New York: Random House, 1992.

David Freeman Hawke. Nuts and Bolts of the Past: A History of American technology, 1776-1860. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988.

Brooke Hindle. Emulation and Invention. New York: New York University Press, 1981.

Clifton Hood. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

David A. Hounshell. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Thomas P. Hughes. American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989.

Don Ihde. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Jan Jennings, ed. Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990.

John Jewkes, David Sawers, and Richard Stillerman. The Sources of Invention. 2nd edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1969.

Wassily Kandinsky. Point and Line to Plane. New York: Dover Publications, 1979.

Peter G. W. Keen. Shaping the Future: Business Design through Information Technology. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, 1991.

Anthony D. King, ed. Buildings and Society: Essays on the Social Development of the Built Environment. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.

Paul Klee. Pedagogical Sketchbook. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, trans. London: Faber and Faber, 1968.

Paul L. Knox, ed. The Design Professions and the Built Environment. New York: Nichols Publishing Co., 1988.

David Kolb. Postmodern Sophistications: Philosophy, Architecture, and Tradition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Marcel C. LaFollette. Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science, 1910-1955. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Jack Larkin. The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988.

Edwin T. Layton, Jr. The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Le Corbusier. The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning. Frederick Etchells, trans. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1987.

Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. Frederick Etchells, trans. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1986.

William Leiss. Under Technology's Thumb. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990.

Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery, eds. History from Things: Essays on Material Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.

Donlyn Lyndon and Charles W. Moore. Chambers for a Memory Palace. Cambridge: The MIT University Press, 1994.

Pamela E. Mack. Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.

Donald Mackenzie. Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1990.

Ezio Manzini. The Material of Invention: Materials and Design. Anthony Shugaar, trans. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989.

Victor Margolin, ed. Design Discourse: History, Theory, Criticism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Ian L. McHarg. Design with Nature. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1969.

Andre Millard. Edison and the Business of Innovation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

Joel Mokyr. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Lewis Mumford. Technics and Civilization. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1963.

Shigehiro Nakamura. The New Standardization: Keystone of Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing. Portland, OR: Productivity Press, 1993.

David F. Noble. American By Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Arnold Pacey. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology. 2nd edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Victor Papanek. Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. 2nd edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1984.

Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983.

Henry Petroski. The Evolution of Useful Things. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

Henry Petroski. To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.

Amos Rapoport. The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Nonverbal Communication Approach. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1990

Donald A. Schön, The Design Studio: An Exploration of its Traditions and Potentials. London: RIBA Publications, 1985.

Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

Herbert A. Simon. The Sciences of the Artificial. 2nd edition. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1982.

Terry Smith. Making the Modern: Industry, Art, and Design in America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Stanford Design Forum. Design in the Contemporary World. Stanford: Stanford Alumni Association, 1989.

Walter G. Vincenti. What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.

Robert J. Weber. Forks, Phonographs, and Hot Air Balloons: A Field Guide to Inventive Thinking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987.