Think Like A Designer, Don't Act Like One

by Jeroen van Erp

This anthology of design concepts reveals what you can learn from Mad Men's Don Draper, why the Beatles were not just brilliant as musicians, how a lemon tart can make you world famous and why purple is just always so wrong. Unless you're Prince or the Pope, that is, but this book is for everyone who isn't.

Genres: Design

192 pages, Paperback

Published May 24, 2018

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

A set of short, quick hits on design concepts and maxims. Maybe it was a translation issue, but most of the lessons were so short as to seem superficial or way too general to be useful. For example, "Advanced, yet Acceptable" reads in total: "This was the design philosophy of famous American designer Raymond Loewy, best known for his 'streamlined' products in the 1950s - everything from cars to refrigerators. In everyone of his designs he sought to strike just the right balance between the familiar and the unknown, because he was convinced that was what consumers would most appreciate. More than 40 years later, research at Delft University of Technology into public acceptance of new products would prove him right. And so make his personal philosophy a universal design practice." This is interesting, but for this to be useful, you need a LOT more information. What is the right balance? Is that balance always the same at all times and for all products and for all people? What places are the best place to push that balance? Is this only true for products, or does it also work for services? Values? Art? Political ideas? For these design ideas to be at all useful, we need a lot more than what is presented here.

**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Mimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even if I hadn´t looked at the name of the writer, I could have guessed he was Dutch, the English often read as a rather literal translation.
Although this book presented an interesting concept, it failed in my opinion.
Several of the ideas the writer discussed would have benefitted from a larger portion of text, since fitting them into such a small space made them either vague or difficult to follow. Or the writer was unable to form a decent synopsis of his opinion on a certain aspect of design.

I received a copy for review through Netgalley, this did not influence my opinion.

[Am Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written by a non-native English speaker and it shows. Some of the phrases/quotes/ideas were so badly articulated/translated that I had no idea what they meant. Others were just meaningless or way too generic or abstract - i.e. nonsensical fluff that hopes to trick you into believing it has depth far beyond that which you can comprehend but which in reality is a senseless pile of steaming bull.

[Randal White · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seventy five short, rather superficial entries, ostensibly about design. Way too short to actually give one any idea of the actual design process.

[Anggia Widhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually kinda enjoy this book. It reminds me of the design lectures that I took and I missed.
Some parts are contradictive to one another. Maybe he wants to show that the world is not black and white..

[vinia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cheap English. Informative. Not informative enough. Dry texts. But yet interesting.. i don’t know what to think about this book (after I’ve bought it for 16€ in Amsterdam🤣) 😭. ¿Maybe like 2.5 ⭐️?

[BjornBeckers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected a bit more from this book when I bought it. But essentially it is 75 fun facts about design. But there is rarely interesting things to be told. I guess my expectations were completely wrong on this one. But I have to give it just 2 stars for how little I enjoyed it.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book passed my test for this type of book, a quick presentation of 75 design truths: While reading through it, I had to grab paper and pen to write down all the ideas that came to me, sparked by its pages.

This is the type of book that I generally read when I am blocked from progress on an idea. I find it helpful to hold my current project in mind while simply going through the book asking how each truth presented might apply to my dilemma.

However on my first reading of this book I did not have any particular problem in mind. I merely read through it to see what was there, yet I wound up with a list of actionable ideas. The text is extremely concise, with a photo for every concept provided. The relationship between the concept and the photo is not always immediately apparent and, frankly, is not always adequately explained. I found that reaching for the connection proved to be a catalyst to my own creative thought.

[Ed Res · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of money - just an upgraded slideshare presentation with some nice quotes from others, not the author.

[Conrad Luijten · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose to give this book an average rating of 3 stars, which is still quite generous. Seeing this book was short with a bunch of pictures, I did lower my expectation before starting, otherwise this would've been a 1-2 star. Here are my reasons WHY:

The book features nice photos that accomodate the messages or individual lessons taught throughout the book, so, the book does USE nice design.
HOWEVER, it doesn't actually TEACH design. So, the book doesn't in fact teach you how to think as a designer, it just shows you examples of people that did.

Each lesson gives you almost like a fun example out of which the given lesson has been derived. This is always done with a visually consistent style of design. A design that in my opinion is flawed for the fact that it limits itself by focussing too much on the clean design element, leaving too much interpretation on the readers side without actually offering informational value on how to practically implement the given lesson. It's more like the book was meant to be a look inside a designer's mind as an outsider trying to be interest and inspire them rather than aiding actual designers in learning something new and practical. (Most things were common sense to me, being a designer)

Lastly, being from the Netherlands myself (like the author), I feel this book is a bit biased in its choice of examples, I counted at least 12 examples out of the total 75 examples featuring Dutch designers, brands or organisations, that wouldn't necessarily have been the best example to explain the given lesson. It seems a bit pretentious to me to be honest. Being dutch myself I know my national counterparts are top notch at selling baked air without real content, the only thing the prevents me from giving this book a lower score is that I genuinely believe that the book was made for dutch people to get a hint on what goes on in the design world, that was later decided to be translated and sold internationally because of sale opportunities.

In short, if you are a designer and actually want to learn some new insights on how to improve your craft, steer away from this one. If you're a casual drifting outside your lane to check out what this part of the human zoo has to offer, knock yourselves out!

[So · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected going in. I was not a fan of the format. Though there was an attempt to categorize the blurbs by focus areas, I still found that it didn’t live up to the potential of its title which to me, a product designer by profession, was a tad confusing. These are short blurbs rather than full on stories about various designers and (design) leaders & thinkers, which if I were to hop over to any networking platform such as twitter or Instagram, I could easily find a plethora of posts containing this info (and some were familiar to me for this exact reason!) I didn’t find anything new or directly actionable as I expected from the title & that was disappointing. That being said, the positive point to this review is that this could be an interesting coffee table read and easily read by any person, not just designers or those involved in any of those industries and could make for good conversation starting topics.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept for a book but it feels somewhat half finished and aimless in it's target market. People in the Design Industry would find many of the entries too opinionated while—when viewed as an introduction to the world of Design—those outside the industry would find many of the example too oblique.

While occasionally providing interest and new information, some of the entries in this book seems a bit under-researched. A mention of a font being designed for a ‘Computer Game’ when a quick investigation would show it was a Program Management tool is just one example noted.

The book certainly provides some good examples of what make the Design Industry so fascinating but in some areas feels slightly unfinished. It acts as a good example of one of its own entries:

#48 IS IT GOOD ENOUGH? “… If the answer isn't “Yes”, then there's more work to be done … ”

[Ashley vH · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a digital review copy of this from Net Galley.

I read this on a Kindle and therefore could not fully appreciate the graphic layout. The photos are well selected to illustrate the project or product.

The book successfully compiles many disparate designs and highlights a unique design consideration with each example. It does not do more than this, and I don't believe it was intended to. I appreciated its integrated approach to design principles, and the inclusion of design objects ranging from products, architecture projects and everyday signage. It seems best suited to perusal, rather than study. As such, a physical copy would be ideally suited to a coffee table or waiting area.

[Jennifer Claywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! The designs chosen were sometimes unexpected and the advice boiled down to two main things: 1) There are rules to design and 2) Break the rules!

This book makes a great addition to the "Think Like" series. The included images make this book great coffee table book material, but it's not just a visual smorgasbord. The prose throughout is entertaining more than enlightening, but there are gems to remember, like this one: "Wrong can be right."

[Gaurav Mathur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sound bites on design.

Finished it in ~35 minutes in a bookshop. Glad I did not pay for it.

Not a ‘bad’ book, but then, not much of a ‘book’ either. As another reviewer noted, it’s more of a slideshare presentation.

[Kaitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am perhaps more interested in the Think Like series as I live in the Netherlands and these books are written by Dutch authors and a lot of the examples are from here. That being said I enjoyed this short introduction to thinking like a designer and appreciate this quick guide.

[Sym · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and informative read, with great tips on how to approach creativity and aspects of life. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and the images alongside the text adds to that pleasure. I think this would make a great gift for a friend or someone interested in the arts.

[Ninaad · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title might be the best thing written in this book. Not insightful at all, a waste of time.

[Gosia · Rating 2 out of 5]

For €12 there wasn't much there to learn or read...good for someone who likes flick through picture rather than read...good for present I suppose...

[Shay · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some interesting points in the book, but I think mot worth making a book out of it. A blog or something similar would have been sufficient.
Nevertheless, it opens your eyes to some ideas.

[Blbg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool book for beginners or people lacking confidence

[Amit Verma · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a different type of book. Short chapters and wonderful pictures.
It is for designers and artists and readers who want to read nonfiction books revealing basic concepts and ideas in an enjoyable way.
It has ideas about how design concepts and circumstances are different now and how artist should change.
I liked all the pictures.
It introduced me to many great facts and stories related to world of arts.
A very interesting and highly readable book. Easily recommend for reading by anyone not only restricted to nonfiction lovers.