Leisa’s Reviews > Designing for People > Status Update

'the designer sells a design service, not a tangible product. In other words, all the drawings, blueprints, models are prepared for the client merely to explain or clarify the design.'

Chapter 13 was a cracker - all about the relationship between an independent designer and her client, with notes on spec work (don't ask for it) and innies (only in special cases). Still loving this book.

Loving this book. So relevant despite being written in the 50s and so full of personality.

'hence a rule we follow: design should be obvious. .. At the expense of forfeiting originality... We try to make things obvious to operate, not only in airplane interiors but in everything that we do'

'Contrary to a popular misconception, the industrial designer wields no magic wand. He is a painstaking, practical professional [who wears] many hats.'

'he will compromise up to a point but he refuses to budge on design principles he knows to be sound. Occasionally he may lose a client, but he rarely loses the client's respect'

There is no obvious evidence in his life of any hobbies except that of an abiding and intensive interest in the daily lives of his fellow Americans ... He has developed a technique of drawing upside-down so that his companion can see what he is designing or explaining from the other side of the table' what a man :)