Design Process Reading -1 Preface

by Karl Aspelund

Wednesday's reading homework consisted of reading up to page eighteen starting from the front cover. I was surprised at how lengthy and well divided the table of contents is. You would have no trouble figuring out what page something is with a table this well organized. The majority off the reading is the preface and the acknowledgments. 

The preface is a very detailed and informative look at the entirety of the book...as most prefaces are. I enjoyed that it was simply enough to understand, as someone who has  a very short attention span, its nice to be able to follow along without getting lost in unnecessary big word. The writer explains the steps that they set up as the stages of design. The seven steps are Inspiration, identification, conceptualization, exploration/refinement, definition/modeling, communication and production. This alone taught me something new already. If I had been asked to write down steps I believed to be in the process of designing I wouldn't have come up with seven. He then goes on to very briefly define each of the steps to get the general idea, since each chapter will go very into dept into the subjects as we read on. 

In the acknowledgments the author thanks the people who's contributions where important to his book, including his children, who's illustrations are included in the book. 

I was surprised I wasn't bored with the reading, as I mentioned before I have a short attention span, and this was a good read. I really like that the book comes not just with the process and explanations of the steps, but as the preface mentions, it comes with information of designers starting from the 1800's as well as postmodern culture and similar subjects. Flipping through the book I can easily see it contains lots of interesting pictures from sketches, fashion designs, to architectural drawing. As it is also mentioned its nice to have a book specifically set up for design students. The author mentions he also never found a book that dealt with specific subjects crucial for designers such as sources of inspirations. 

My first impression of the book is that this will be one book that I will have through out the rest of not only my college education but hopefully through out any future job as well.