Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"Design was the boom industry of the last decade, and it has helped to create the superficially more 'caring' image that currently exists in our society. Yet the newsworthiness of design conceals a disturbing ignorance of the profession's values and ambitions - even among designers themselves. Design generates much heat but little light: we live in a world that has much design consciousness but appallingly little design awareness. Nigel Whiteley analyses design's role within the consumer society, and discusses what our obsession with it tells us about the present state of our own culture." "Design for Society is not an anti-design book; rather, it is an anti-consumerist-design book, in that it exposes what most people would agree are the socially and ecologically unsound values on which the system of consumerist design is constructed. The author reviews the implications for design of the Green movement, the growing impact of feminism, and the ideas of 'socially responsible' designers. In so doing, he prepares the ground for a more self-aware and just development of design."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Publishers Weekly Review

First published in England, this stimulating study offers British and Continental perspectives on the ethics of design in the consumer era. Whiteley, who heads the Department of Visual Arts at the Univ. of Lancaster, first describes how marketing and abundance have created socially unnecessary products and damaged collective bonds, beginning in the United States in the '50s and in Western Europe in the '60s. He then traces the response of ``Green'' consumers, offering thoughtful analyses of issues like recycling and the growth of a slicker Green aesthetic. Surveying efforts at ``responsible design,'' Whiteley recounts the tale of Heineken Brewery's ill-fated World Bottle, intended for recycling as a brick for building houses, as well as efforts to design products for the Third World or the disabled. He suggests that feminist critics fighting gender stereotyping can influence manufacturers and designers only slightly until the broader society changes. Though the author is not against style, he proposes that good design must also take into account a product's social usefulness and environmental effects. Illustrations. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved