What It Means to Be a Designer Today: Reflections, Questions, and Ideas from AIGA’s Eye on Design

What It Means to Be a Designer Today: Reflections, Questions, and Ideas from AIGA’s Eye on Design

Liz Stinson (Editor), Jarrett Fuller (Editor), Perrin Drumm (Foreword by)
$40.00
Publication Date: April 2nd, 2024
Publisher:
Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN:
9781797224558
Pages:
240
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Description

AIGA’s Eye on Design presents a provocative collection of essays and interviews that cover a wide-reaching examination of the profession of design today and its impacts on society and culture.

Eye on Design is an editorial platform from AIGA that has, for the last decade, covered the ins and outs of the design industry. From documenting bold new work from global designers to chronicling the field's most critical issues, their reported stories, op-eds, interviews, and conversations help designers make sense of the world and place their profession within a broader context. Weaving together original and previously published content from some of the most important writers in today’s design conversation, this book for designers encapsulates wide-reaching topics that strive to answer an essential question: What does it mean to be a designer today?

Organized into three parts—Reflections, Questions, and Ideas—this book covers the most pressing issues and provocations that designers face in our current world, including:

  • The evolution of personal branding
  • Teaching design history
  • The cult of minimalism
  • The perils of hero worship
  • Designers’ role in conspicuous consumption
  • The meaning of visual sustainability
  • And more


Contributors include the book's editors, Liz Stinson and Jarrett Fuller, and such outstanding design writers as Rick Poynor, Anne Quito, Briar Levit, Cliff Kuang, and many more. Accessible, engaging, and conversational, What It Means to Be a Designer Today is an enduring resource and vibrant gift book that speaks to design students and educators, working designers of all levels, and anyone interested in graphic design.

About the Author

Liz Stinson is a journalist and editor. She has covered the intersection of design, culture, and business for publications including WIRED, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, and more. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jarrett Fuller is a designer, writer, educator, editor, and podcaster. He is an assistant professor of graphic design at North Carolina State University and the host of the podcast Scratching the Surface. He lives in Raleigh, NC.

Praise for What It Means to Be a Designer Today: Reflections, Questions, and Ideas from AIGA’s Eye on Design

"Writing about graphic design is mistakenly perceived as a niche theme for practicing designers. Eye On Design proves that what it means to be a graphic designer has relevance for everyone interested in visual culture-which is just about everyone."

—Steven Heller, former editor, AIGA Journal of Graphic Design


"From the start, Eye on Design has been committed to finding new voices in design, uncovering stories no one else noticed, and detecting the faint heartbeats of soon-to-be major trends. I find myself returning to it again and again."

—Michael Beirut, partner, Pentagram


"Eye on Design did what all great magazines do-land in the right place at the right time, delivering a much-needed fresh look at its subject."

—Jeremy Leslie, founder of MagCulture


"Breaking through the design blogosphere is almost impossible, but Eye on Design is different-they have a point of view. It's not a portfolio circus or slew of product plugs, the writers and editors behind each story practice real journalism. Having been involved with a handful of articles involving my work and the work of others, it's one of the few places that takes the time, consideration, and viewpoints of all sources involved. This book is a snapshot of design journalism thriving during a decade of the demise, resurrection, and reinvention of the craft."

—Jesse Reed, partner, Order


AIGA's Eye on Design has always been, to me, a refreshing outlier in the design-writing world. Honest, incisive, and important, its reporting rejected the adulation typical of the field, seeking out reality instead. This book speaks to its title statement with the publication's signature creativity and care-for its subject and its readers-capturing enduring ideas that may well impact us all."

—Tiffany Jow, editor-in-chief, Untapped


“Graphic design is a slippery, squishy blob. Is it dead or alive? Is it everywhere or nowhere? These smart, plucky essays show how graphic design oozes between disciplines, adding shimmer and shine to anything in its path.”

—Ellen Lupton, author of Thinking with Type