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William Lidwell

Deconstructing Product Design: Exploring the Form, Function, Usability, Sustainability, and Commercial Success of 100 Amazing Products Paperback – October 1, 2011

by William Lidwell (Author), Gerry Manacsa (Author)

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What makes a product successful?

How it looks? The way it functions? Its ease of use? Or do factors like price and marketing dominate?

In a quest to find answers to these questions, Deconstructing Product Design engages readers in a process of critically analyzing a diverse collection of 100 innovative products, from well-known classics to contemporary objects of desire. New in paperback, this books aims to support critical thinking about design, facilitate discovery of patterns of success (and failure) across products, and enable designers to apply lessons learned to their own design work. Experts from multiples design disciplines contribute commentary, including:

—Robert Blaich, industrial design

—Jill Butler, graphic design

—Alan Cooper, technology design

—Brock Danner, architecture

—Kimberly Elam, graphic design

—Donald Emmite, design history

—Larimie Garcia, graphic arts

—Scott Henderson, product design

—Kritina Holden, human factors

—Robert Kingslyn, graphic design

—Jon Kolko, interaction design

—Lyle Sandler, experience design

Continue the deconstruction at http://www.deconstructingproductdesign.com.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Rockport Publishers
Publication date

October 1, 2011
Dimensions

8.5 x 0.63 x 10 inches
ISBN-10

1592537391
ISBN-13

978-1592537396
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Paul Jackson
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William Lidwell is the Director of Design at Stuff Creators Design in Houston, Texas. He is author of the best-selling design book, Universal Principles of Design, which has been translated into 12+ languages; Deconstructing Product Design, a social deconstruction of 100 classic products; and lecturer of two video series on design: "How Colors Affect You: What Science Reveals" available from The Great Courses, and "The Science of Logo Design" available from Lynda.com.Gerry Manacsa is a visual designer, artist, and engineer who helped to pioneer the web frontier in areas ranging from mixed-media personal storytelling to interactive learning methods for corporate and industrial environments. He lives in Houston, TX. http://www.manacsadesign.com

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rockport Publishers; Reprint edition (October 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1592537391
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1592537396
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.63 x 10 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,827,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,778 in Industrial & Product Design
- #6,733 in Popular Applied Psychology
- #18,141 in Commercial Graphic Design (Books)

Customer Reviews:
20 ratings

About the author

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William Lidwell

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Will writes, speaks, and consults on matters of design and engineering psychology. He is particularly interested in cross-disciplinary design and the means by which organizations achieve and institutionalize innovation. He is a Stuff Creator in residence at Stuff Creators Design Studio and a Lecturer of Industrial Design at the University of Houston. Follow Will on Twitter at www.twitter.com/williamlidwell.

Customer reviews

5 star		62%
4 star		14%
3 star		25%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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M

I’d like to buy some copies for gifting

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent book. I wish this was still in print.

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2011

Verified Purchase

The information on the products chosen are not detailed but the entries are interesting and a good basis to examine even more products.It helped to mold my thinking

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great book for product minded folks!

Helpful

Joan Gould

My grandson's enthusiasm for the book pleased me...

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2010

Verified Purchase

This book was a 19th birthday present to my grandson who is an Industrial Design major at Virginia Tech. His thank-you letter (actually written on a note card) said, "Thank you so much for the birthday book...it is incredible! I love it and it is a great book for developing a designer state of mind!"

One person found this helpful

Helpful

ParkaTop Contributor: Coloring

Classy and insightful

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2011

The media could not be loaded.

This is a book that looks behind the scenes at how products are designed - specifically the thought process. Over 100 products are featured, and they all look really sleek. Commentary comes in the form of an analysis of the product itself, followed by thoughts from a class of prominent designers and thinkers. It can get very detailed, down to the aesthetic choices like putting ornamental rivets. It's also a wonderful showcase of relatively unknown products.

Of course, a nicely designed product might not translate to commercial success. All the examples featured are also ranked on attributes like aesthetic, function, usability, sustainability and the commercial success.

This is a nice classy book on product design. Highly recommended to product designers.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

ArAllSummer07

It's ok for quick product identification and review

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2011

This is a good book if you are trying match a name with a product. And appreciably, this book includes a wide variety of common products that would be seen in a variety of social strata, not just with the upper crust, the design elites or design snobs. Also, it gives for each product a brief history and bits of interesting background trivia. Everything is nice and easy to read.
Unfortunately, things to nitpick are glaring: A lot of the text is pretty subjective ("I...," "I...," "I...," all the way through). The "qualitative ratings" are supposed to be objective, but given that the reader can directly compare one product to the next, for example the Vespa to a Vodka Bottle, it is a guess that these are also subjective (The book says the Glock 17 9mm semi-automatic handgun is more usable than Bic pen or a Refrigerator. An industrially manufactured and battery-hungry Maglite is as equally sustainable as the Pot-in-Pot Cooler). "Deconstructing" in the title is a bit mis-leading... it would have been grand if it would have given the reader more than one image or picture per product (to help explain form or workings), information on manufacturing procedures, a price range, any variations, or dates of manufacture for the items that are no longer made. It is hard not to notice that some of the images are not even real pictures of the product, but somebody's obvious attempt at computer rendering-they look terribly fake. The many professional contributors to this book are knowledgeable and respected, so for a few instances, why did this book choose to print their input when their contribution didn't add anything useful, or worse, when they openly disclosed that they haven't owned, used, or even touched the products they are reviewing?

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Peadar O'Kovsky

but a quick 'flick through' though looks like it's a little light on details of the actual ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2015

Verified Purchase

Bought this for someone else, but a quick 'flick through' though looks like it's a little light on details of the actual design process of the products included. If you just want a fairly comprehensive reference of iconic products for research examples, then this book will suffice. However if you're looking for more detail on the design and marketing process, then I believe this one won't help.

gts15nathan

Great Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2012

Verified Purchase

I bought this book because i am studying product as one of my A-levels and i found it very useful inspiring my designs. The book presents a product on one page and an in detail description of the design of the product. Overall I think this book would be of good use people interested in product design or particular areas of engineering.

pacopicopiedra

Fabulous - Shame about the cover design

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

A really great, informative book which I hope will have a sequel. A fascinating variety of products covered in a clear, intelligible way (with helpful use of designer jargon) by the authors and contributors.

My only qualm is with the publisher, whose dedication to sub-editing & cover design doesn't do justice to the content.

Keith Lovell

Good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

Good book to help my design classes with the analysis of the products. Gives good meaning to all that I am teaching