Hello World:where Design Meets Life

by Alice Rawsthorn

HardCover. Pub Date :2013-03-07 Pages: 288 Language: English Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Hello World is Alice Rawsthorns definitive guide to design and modern lifeDesign is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. When deployed wisely. it can bring us pleasure. choice. strength. decency and much more. But if its power is abused. the outcome can be wasteful. confusing. humiliating. even dangerous. None of us can avoid being affected by design. whether or not we wish to. It is so ubiquitous that it determines how we feel and what we do. often without our noticing.Hello World explores designs influence on our lives. Written by the renowned design critic Alice Rawsthorn and designed by the award-winning book designer Irma Boom. it describes how warlords. scientists. farmers. hackers. activists and designers have used design to different ends throughout history: from the maca...

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Art, Art Design

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and the author of critically acclaimed books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.

An influential public speaker and social media commentator on design, Alice has participated in important global events including TED and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Her TED talk has been viewed by over a million people worldwide. One of The Big Issue's 100 Changemakers 2023 for her work on Design Emergency, she was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.

Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice graduated in art history from Cambridge University. She was an award-winning journalist for the Financial Times for nearly twenty years, working as a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneering the FT's coverage of the creative industries. For over a decade, Alice was design critic of the international edition of The New York Times, writing a weekly Design column, which was syndicated to other media worldwide.

An honorary senior fellow of the Royal College of Art with an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts, Alice is a founding member of the OECD's Future of Democracy Network, of the advisory board of the DemocracyNext research and action institute and of Writers at Liberty, a group of writers who are committed to championing human rights and freedoms as supporters of the human rights charity Liberty.

Alice has served on many cultural juries including: the Turner Prize for contemporary art; the Stirling Prize for architecture; the PEN History Book Prize; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture; the Buckminster Fuller Challenge; the Museum of the Year award; the Rome Prize for Architecture and Design; the Soane Medal for Architecture; and the BAFTA film and television awards.

A former chair of the boards of trustees of The Hepworth Wakefield museum in Yorkshire, Chisenhale Gallery in London and Michael Clark Company, the contemporary dance group, Alice was a longstanding trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery. A trustee of Arts Council England from 2006 to 2013, she is a past chair of the British Council's Design Advisory Group and a former member of the Design Council and of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Design. From 2018 to 2023, Alice was a member of the UK government's Honours Committee for Arts and Media.

As well as contributing essays to a number of books on design and contemporary culture, Alice is the author of an acclaimed biography of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, described by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as "panoramic in scope, passionately argued and highly addictive to read". Design as an Attitude is published globally by JRP|Ringier and Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, by Phaidon. Alice's books have been translated into over a dozen languages.

Reviews

[Veronica Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

This book was recommended by Paola Antonelli, Senior curator of Design and Architecture at MoMA. I can see why as she is mentioned multiple times in the text and featured heavily in the bibliography. It is an all around good text on design, covering some breadth of historical examples as well a many contemporary ones. As indicated by programming reference in the title, Rawsthorn covers elements of digital and computer design. For me these were the most interesting parts of the book.

Rawsthorn also engages with larger questions about the definition of design, what is good design, why design should be sustainable, and the overall responsibly of design. She does not shy away from voicing her strong opinions on design, many of which I found valid and insightful.

At times I wished that her approach was a bit more art-historically rigorous in approach but I understand that is not what she was trying to do here. However the bibliography seems very good for future research. Also I kind of wish the publisher had been more attentive with the reference images, as they would have benefited from a gloss paper, I could not see the greyscale images in their low resolution! (the Helvetica typeset was very nice though :) )

[Ninakix · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a big difference between practicing something and critiquing it. Which is fine, but this book makes me feel acutely that this is someone who has never practiced design. And that's fine, but the criticism doesn't feel very nuanced or attuned to what all of this means either. This is a “because I like design” kind of book. But at some point, example after example of design and design history becomes just that — a retelling, without meaning or interpretation. Perhaps it would make for a good textbook, except for the bizarre lack of imagery for such a visual field. What little imagery there is seems only incidental in building meaning or insight. Or perhaps it's just the prose that struck me as difficult to absorb and really understand what was being said. Each chapter certainly had a point about design that it wanted to make, but these points didn't feel compelling or in depth. And so I'm just a bit confused.

[Martyn Perks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful historically, very knowledgable and broad coverage of design practice. However she's similar to so many: thinks design ought to be more responsible, socially-deterministic and consequently, intervene more in order to give design a broader purpose. Can't agree. She's also packed it with examples from her friends. So can't take the research so seriously. More like an in-the-know view of design. Finally, she ignores many broader social and political reasons of why designers do what they do, and why business need designers more than the other way round.

[Hee Jin · Rating 4 out of 5]

overall: very insightful and interesting, chockfull of "fun facts" (in quotes since i have not researched the validity of the stories included). shortfall in that it mainly serves as a collection of anecdotes and doesn't have a takeaway "so what"

ch1 what is design - general historical overview, starting with qin shihuangdi
ch2 what is a designer - this chapter was a little lost on me, especially as you keep reading the book because the rest of the book virtually doesn't support the passionate assertion here about how designers are not just "design-showmen" and create based on "intellectual enquiry" (ie, not people who are "merely" designing logos / colors / button locations). the rest of the stories in the book end up being about "traditional" designers so it felt a little forced to make such a statement about "designers". (also did Hilary Cottam pay to be featured in this book? felt like she makes way more appearances than necessary. i did look up Participle but was sad to find out that it has shut down). this chapter also reads as an extended summary of the whole book - was it really necessary to pre-hash the book?
ch3 what is good design - necessity of the "useful and beautiful" requirements. appreciated the variety of examples (ak47, google logo, film opening sequences, & lol @ the london olympic logo). interesting point about the differences of designing digitally & not.
ch4 why good design matters - stories of the amputees & their prosthetics, world cup ball, zurich airport, hanging chad.
ch5 so why is so much design so bad? - short answer: difficulties in cooperation (amongst designers, with other departments / external groups). then a sudden very violent rant against OralB about their electric toothbrush (and again in ch10) -- ??? why did you buy it if it's ugly / maybe it was attractive when it first came out / what is the tradeoff between progress (in this case, oral health) versus "environment" worth? should we stop having elevators since they use up a ton of elevators and it's more healthy for people to walk up & down the stairs?
ch6 why everyone wants to 'do an Apple' - obviously this chapter is obvious and expected but a little tiring to have a whole chapter dedicated to it. (and here, during this worship of "great design" was where i skeptically remembered the earlier claim on how "designers" don't JUST create physical products..)
ch7 why design is not-and should never be confused with-art - the least enjoyable chapter because it was quite literally a name dump of artists and designers with usually no context. for one with virtually no background in such topics it was a whirlwind of proper nouns.
ch8 sign of the times - on logos (more apple) but also signage, which i found more interesting. also the @ and the #. interesting fact about how earlier "corporate identities resembled aristocratic coats of arms" ie bmw and fiat. and cool fact about hermes and the horse harness, michelin, mtv.
ch9 when a picture says more than words - maps & such. and here was where i realized why i even wanted to read this book in the first place - data visualization / information design. unfortunately, only goes as so far to describe the history, nothing much more.
ch10 it's not that easy being green - ah yes a whole chapter to continue the rant against OralB. some points were highly valid (road transport) but the tirade against toothbrushes came off as unnecessarily hostile to me.
ch11 why form no longer follows function - linking the statement with the rise of "the origin of species". and interesting musings on how the digital age has completely flipped that over
ch12 me myself and i - very interesting section about how the changes in design/technology have also augmented "our desire to express our individuality". i thought of it more as how you crave to be noticed and acknowledged as a unique and special snowflake in this age of mass-produced everything and world of 'large numbers'. also the heralding of 3d printing
ch13 what about 'the other 90%' - really important and necessary section that i still have some thinking to do on, especially Bruce Nussbaum's "Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism...Are designers the new anthropologists or missionaries, come to poke into village life, "understand" it and make it better - their "modern" way?". (also cue Hilary Cottam ad here again)

format gripe - read this in ebook and i'm pretty sure the picture formatting was not done properly because the photos were all over the place, did not coincide with the specific chapter.

[Vinicius Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a good read. Not very eye-opening for practitioners but a good experience for those who need to understand the power of the Design discipline. I was particularly drawn to the chapter about signs. It was a very interesting read as it had more historical examples paired with contemporary ones.

There are some bits of humor too which make the reading quite good. It’s packed full with information, with an amazing bibliography.

[Tomáš Zahradník · Rating 2 out of 5]

Celkem fascinující a veeelmi obsáhlé poznatky o historii designu. Spoustu příběhů a spojitostí jednotlivých designérů mezi sebou. Pro mě zdlouhavé čtení, do kterého se mi většinou moc nechtělo, ale přinosné to přecejen bylo.

[Kat]

Tried to read this for a work book group. While there were a few interesting trivia nuggets here and there, it reads like it was meant to be a textbook. We found it to be unenjoyably dense, and in 4 months, no one finished but the person who picked it.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written primer for the design novice, a good resource and reminder for the seasoned pro.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neat and cleanly written introduction, if not exactly revelatory e.g. on the effectively manipulative gaucheness of Google's logos, "Google's corporate identity excels thanks to its [logo's] aesthetic flaws". I do wonder how persuasive Rawsthorn's centralisation of "integrity," which "embraces environmental and ethical responsibility" in design would be to someone who doesn't already agree with her, as I do; conversely I wished for more of her sophisticated yet clear analysis of particular examples of design meeting life (hello, subtitle) and a little less of the obvious, basic political manifesto stuff.

[Ev · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was much broader in scope than I expected. Rather than focusing on any one aspect of design, the author discusses "design thinking," a form of problem solving that can be generalized to any area. The examples discussed are compelling; the writing is admirable. Well worth the year wait (I ordered it to my library last July, and here it is now) and the month it took me to get through. And yes, for the record, I did like the tiny margins and Helvetica text.

[Vuk Trifkovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, but not great. The first few chapters are very insightful. However, the rest settles into an essayistic pattern and chapters are bit disconnected.

Odd choice of typography. Helvetica did not work as main text font.

[Rochelle March · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of "design thinking," but mostly on the history of product design. Got some great snippets, but was left wanting more. Tough topic to encapsulate, however, in one book. Perhaps her next one will be more pointed.

[Joebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind opening book, explaining in a clear and detailed way the processes of a correct design thinking providing examples and case studies. I strongly advise this one.