Deconstructing Product Design

More Commentary from Trevor van Gorp

Gerry Manacsa — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:22:10 +0000

On his blog, affective design, Deconstructing Product Design contributor Trevor van Gorp gives a quick rundown of the commentary he provided on products included on this site (two of which are in the print version of DPD).

If you enjoyed Trevor’s insightful thoughts from the book, be sure to take a look.

Deconstructing Product Design Free from Schipul

Gerry Manacsa — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:26:51 +0000

Book contributor Jonti Bolles works with the web marketing firm Schipul, and they’re giving away a free copy of Deconstructing Product Design in November:

Our very own Search Engine Marketing Team Manager, Jonti Bolles, is a former professor of Architecture and we can testify that this gal loves her design… so much so that she was tapped to offer her expert design commentary in the recently published Deconstructing Product Design book by Will Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa.

Want a copy? Tell us what product you can’t live without and what about it’s design has made it integral to your life.

Go to the Schipul blog for your chance for a free copy…

Fast Company: Classic Products + Social Media

Gerry Manacsa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:07:46 +0000

Deconstructing Product Design contributor Rob Tannen muses on the Polaroid SX-70 and Other Classic Products That Have Social Media at Their Core, for Fast Company’s blog.

Core 77 Reviews Deconstructing Product Design

Gerry Manacsa — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:48:35 +0000

Robert Blinn at Core77 takes a look at Deconstructing Product Design.

First Look: Deconstructing Product Design

Gerry Manacsa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:49:52 +0000

Human-centered design researcher (and DPD principal contributor) Rob Tannen takes a first look at the completed book on his blog, DESIGNING *for humans.

Deconstructing Product Design Lands on 10-18-09

Gerry Manacsa — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:37:06 +0000

We received the authors’ copies of Deconstructing Product Design recently, and the books’ contributors should have their copies as well. It’s good to see it bound and printed, and we’re quite happy with the final product. Rockport did an excellent job with the book’s production and printing.

Amazon reports that the book will be available on October 18. The “Look Inside” feature is now enabled, too, so you can get a preview of the contents.

[Update: As of October 16, the book is in stock at Amazon]

Find Deconstructing Product Design on Amazon…

The Contributors

Gerry Manacsa — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:15:27 +0000

We have added a contributors’ page featuring the 38 thinkers and doers whose words will be featured in the print edition of the book. With expertise ranging from design and architecture to music, firearms, and iBots, their commentary adds insight and wide-ranging perspective on the products discussed in DPD.

Kimberly Elam, On Product Design

Gerry Manacsa — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:42:43 +0000

Just added to the DPD web site — Principal Contributor Kimberly Elam writes on the nature of product design:

It’s fascinating how some products become parts of the fabric of living and the collective subconscious long after they have disappeared. The silhouette of the rotary dial telephone still communicates the idea of a telephone to teens who have never dialed a phone that was corded to a wall outlet. Similarly, few teens have ever had a Coke in a glass iconic bottle, yet the familiar shape of the bottle still resonates…

Read the complete essay…

Layout and Scatter Proofs

Gerry Manacsa — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:51:40 +0000

We received another batch of proofs from the publisher early this week, so we now have a complete set of fairly high-fidelity, full-scale pages in hand along with scatter proofs of all the product art. It’s exciting to leaf through the pages, the closest thing to real that we’ve seen yet. I was pleased to see that some of the more demanding product pieces — with complex renders, tricky colors, or intensive image processing — successfully made the jump to the printed page. The proof of the recently-completed cover, with a new spine and back cover designed with DPD contributor Jill Butler, looked good wrapped around a studio copy of Universal Principles of Design, which shares the same trim size.

Home Stretch

Gerry Manacsa — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:23:58 +0000

After over two years of work and collaboration with the book’s contributors and the team at Rockport, we completed (what we hope will be) the final content draft, layouts and graphics for Deconstructing Product Design. We’re awaiting a final set of proofs, and from there we can look ahead to publication this fall.

In the meantime, we’re planning a series of upgrades to this site, including the addition of the new blog section you’re reading now. We also plan to align this site’s contents with the final version of the book — a few of the products included here have been replaced. Though we’re no longer accepting commentary for print, we are keeping the comments open for continued discussion and to hear your reactions to the contents of the book upon its publication.