Dark Matter And Trojan Horses A Strategic Design Vocabulary

Strategic design is about applying the principles of traditional design to "big picture" systemic challenges such as healthcare, education and the environment. It redefines how problems are approached and aims to deliver more resilient solutions. In this short book, Dan Hill outlines a new vocabulary of design, one that needs to be smuggled into the upper echelons of power. He asserts that, increasingly, effective design means engaging with the messy politics - the "dark matter" - taking place above the designer's head. And that may mean redesigning the organisation that hires you.

Strategic design is about applying the principles of traditional design to "big picture" systemic challenges such as healthcare, education and the environment. It redefines how problems are approached and aims to deliver more resilient solutions. In this short book, Dan Hill outlines a new vocabulary of design, one that needs to be smuggled into the upper echelons of power. He asserts that, increasingly, effective design means engaging with the messy politics - the "dark matter" - taking place above the designer's head. And that may mean redesigning the organisation that hires you.

What can you do with a degree in architecture? Where might it take you? What kind of challenges could you address? Architects After Architecture reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of designing buildings. In this volume, we meet forty practitioners through profiles, case studies, and interviews, who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways to tackle the climate crisis, work with refugees, advocate for diversity, start tech companies, become leading museum curators, tackle homelessness, draft public policy, become developers, design videogames, shape public discourse, and much more. Together, they describe a future of architecture that is diverse and engaged, expanding the limits of the discipline, and offering new paths forward in times of crisis. Whether you are an architecture student or a practicing architect considering a change, you’ll find this an encouraging and inspiring read. Please visit the Architects After Architecture website for more information, including future book launches and events: architectsafterarchitecture.com

Thirty years before the advent of the literary graphic novel movement in the United States, Yoshihiro Tatsumi created a library of comics that draw parallels to modern prose fiction and today's alternative comics. The stories collected in The Push Man are simultaneously haunting, disturbing, and darkly humorous. A lone man travels the country, projecting pornographic films for private individuals while attempting to maintain a normal home life. The lives of two men become intertwined when one hires the other to observe his sexual escapades through a telescope. An auto mechanic's obsession with a female TV personality turns fatal after a chance meeting between the two

This open access book represents one of the key milestones of DESIGNSCAPES, an H2020 CSA (Coordination and Support Action) research project funded by the European Commission under the Call “User-driven innovation: value creation through design-enabled innovation”. The book demonstrates that adopting design allows us to embed innovation within the city so as to arrive at feasible answers to complex global challenges. In this way, innovation can become disruptive, while also sparking a dynamic of gradual change in the “urbanscape” it acts within. To explore this potential, the book puts forward the concept of “design enabled innovation in urban environments” and examines the part that the city can play in promoting and facilitating the adoption of design among public and private sector innovators. This leads to a potential evaluation framework in which a given urbanscape is assessed both in terms of its capacity for generating innovation, and of the nature (more or less design-dependent or design-prone) of the innovative initiatives it hosts. This thread of reasoning holds many promising implications, including a possible “third way” between those who dream of an alternative economic model where revenues and growth are sacrificed on the altar of social and environmental respect, and the supporters of the traditional market-based view, who feel it is enough to add a touch of responsibility and concern to a system that should continue rewarding the profitability of innovations.

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability. In other words, anyone can find anything at any time. Complete navigability. Morville discusses the Internet, GIS, and other network technologies that are coming together to make unlimited findability possible. He explores how the melding of these innovations impacts society, since Web access is now a standard requirement for successful people and businesses. But before he does that, Morville looks back at the history of wayfinding and human evolution, suggesting that our fear of being lost has driven us to create maps, charts, and now, the mobile Internet. The book's central thesis is that information literacy, information architecture, and usability are all critical components of this new world order. Hand in hand with that is the contention that only by planning and designing the best possible software, devices, and Internet, will we be able to maintain this connectivity in the future. Morville's book is highlighted with full color illustrations and rich examples that bring his prose to life. Ambient Findability doesn't preach or pretend to know all the answers. Instead, it presents research, stories, and examples in support of its novel ideas. Are we truly at a critical point in our evolution where the quality of our digital networks will dictate how we behave as a species? Is findability indeed the primary key to a successful global marketplace in the 21st century and beyond. Peter Morville takes you on a thought-provoking tour of these memes and more -- ideas that will not only fascinate but will stir your creativity in practical ways that you can apply to your work immediately. "A lively, enjoyable and informative tour of a topic that's only going to become more important." --David Weinberger, Author, Small Pieces Loosely Joined and The Cluetrain Manifesto "I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched." --Bruce Sterling, Writer, Futurist, and Co-Founder, The Electronic Frontier Foundation "Search engine marketing is the hottest thing in Internet business, and deservedly so. Ambient Findability puts SEM into a broader context and provides deeper insights into human behavior. This book will help you grow your online business in a world where being found is not at all certain." --Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., Author, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity "Information that's hard to find will remain information that's hardly found--from one of the fathers of the discipline of information architecture, and one of its most experienced practitioners, come penetrating observations on why findability is elusive and how the act of seeking changes us." --Steve Papa, Founder and Chairman, Endeca "Whether it's a fact or a figure, a person or a place, Peter Morville knows how to make it findable. Morville explores the possibilities of a world where everything can always be found--and the challenges in getting there--in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking book." --Jesse James Garrett, Author, The Elements of User Experience "It is easy to assume that current searching of the World Wide Web is the last word in finding and using information. Peter Morville shows us that search engines are just the beginning. Skillfully weaving together information science research with his own extensive experience, he develops for the reader a feeling for the near future when information is truly findable all around us. There are immense implications, and Morville's lively and humorous writing brings them home." --Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D., University of California Los Angeles "I've always known that Peter Morville was smart. After reading Ambient Findability, I now know he's (as we say in Boston) wicked smart. This is a timely book that will have lasting effects on how we create our future. --Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering "In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has put his mind and keyboard on the pulse of the electronic noosphere. With tangible examples and lively writing, he lays out the challenges and wonders of finding our way in cyberspace, and explains the mutually dependent evolution of our changing world and selves. This is a must read for everyone and a practical guide for designers." --Gary Marchionini, Ph.D., University of North Carolina "Find this book! Anyone interested in making information easier to find, or understanding how finding and being found is changing, will find this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, literate, insightful and very, very cool book well worth their time. Myriad examples from rich and varied domains and a valuable idea on nearly every page. Fun to read, too! --Joseph Janes, Ph.D., Founder, Internet Public Library

This quirky handbook of Italian gestures, first published in 1958 by renowned Milanese artist and graphic designer Bruno Munari, will help the phalange-phobic decipher the unspoken language of gestures--a language not found in any dictionary. Photos.