My Favourite Books: SUTD-MIT International Design Centre, Knowledge Partner of President*s Design Award 2018

This is a bimonthly series of book recommendations by the President*s Design Award, brought to you by DesignSingapore Council, Urban Redevelopment Authority, and library@orchard.

This month, we invite the President*s Design Award (P*DA) 2018 Knowledge Partner to share their favourite reads with us. As part of the P*DA’s continued efforts to revamp and improve the award, a Knowledge Partner team was invited to be an independent investigator for shortlisted design submissions. This year’s team comes from the SUTD-MIT International Design Centre. The team has put together book reviews spanning the disciplines of product design, experience design, organisational design, and innovation and creativity. Contributors include Prof Kristin Wood, Dr Dan Jensen, Prof Arlindo Silva, Dr Brad Camburn, Blake Perez, David Anderson, Delane Foo, Edward Tiong, and Olivia Seow. Read on for the team’s picks in product design:

Objectified

Producer: Gary Hurstwit
Location: Adult Lending Audio-visual
Call no.: English 745.2 OBJ – [ART]

Part of a trilogy of design-focused documentaries, Objectified covers the design of everyday things around us. This feature-length documentary covers the work of influential designers and firms around the world including Apple, BMW, and IDEO. Some great aspects of Objectified include its focus on user-centricity, and showing how designers work with users to design products not only worth using, but that people actually want to use.

The Evolution of Useful Things

Author: Henry Petroski
Location: Adult Lending
Call no.: English 608 PET

The author goes into the history of common objects like forks, pins and post-its, digging into the way they have evolved through time (sometimes, through iterations of change and failure) until they take the shape and characteristic they have now. An immensely interesting voyage through time, habits, culture, architecture, engineering, and design thought – all in one book.

Product Design: Techniques in Reverse Engineering and New Product Development <<产品设计>> Chan Pin She Ji

Author: Kevin N. Otto, Kristin L. Wood
Location: Product Design, Industrial Design
Call no.: Chinese 658.5752 OTT – [BIZ]

*This title is available in Chinese at library@orchard.

This book presents an approach to product design based on “state of the art” methods, tools, and processes that when utilized across disciplines provide an overall product development process and depict a very powerful practice of design. Both students and practitioners will find this approach not only effective and practical, but also applicable to today’s design challenges.

The Art of Product Design: Changing How Things Get Made

Author: Hardi Meybaum
Location: Product Design, Industrial Design
Call no.: English 658.5752 MEY – [BIZ]

Computer-aided design (CAD) software plays a huge role in most manufactured objects we see today. Follow Hardi Meybaum’s journey of how he used the concept of Open Engineering for the start-up of the GrabCAD community, a resource now used by over one million engineers and designers worldwide. Plus, read his analysis of how the Web has revolutionised the way product design companies kick-start the creative process, network, and iterate designs.

Design: David Mellor

Author: Teleri Lloyd-Jones
Location: Product Design, Industrial Design
Call no.: English 745.4092 LLO – [ART]

David Mellor is a British designer best knownfor his cutlery designs in the 20th century. Hailing from the city of Sheffield, the centre of cutlery production in Britain since the 17th century, he had a natural inclination and dedication to the craft of metalwork. But beyond that, he also helped to shape the visual feel of the streets of Britain, from letterboxes and traffic lights, to bus shelters and rubbish bins. Learn about Mellor’s life, education, and extensive designs that show off his radical and minimal aesthetics, and mark him as an icon in post-war design.

The recommended titles are available from library@orchard and other public libraries, unless otherwise stated.

Head over to www.designsingapore.org/pda to read more book reviews from P*DA!