Designing for People
Henry Dreyfuss
“Let your watchword be order and beauty your beacon &
“A well planned product will sell better than a poorly planned product
What I like
An excellent primer on design’s history and process, I’d recommend it to any designer or anyone in design business
Pictures and sketches from Dreyfuss make the book delightful to read
Short concise chapters with themes and case studies
What’s missing
There are some stereotypes and biases in this book that might not be as relevant as they are today
Customized goods and Services are a more viable to the product market today than traditional manufactured goods and are not really addressed in this book / time
Key Topics
Creating value for business, creating value for customers, Definitions of design, Designing together / co-design, Design leadership
Review
This book was originally purchased out of curiosity while looking for books by famed designer Henry Dreyfuss- who is considered by many to be the first professional Industrial Designer who defined the practice of Industrial Design through the Great Depression. In his own words, he brought modern art from the museum and into the living rooms, kitchens, train cars, and airplanes of average American Joe’s and Josephine’s- enforcing a new culture of materialism in the United States. He established the concept of the persona (e.g. designing for fictitious average users), design research, design process, and the business model of the design studio. This book is filled with theory and practical advice for designers that holds up magnificently almost a century later. Truly a must-read for anyone in the design industry.
While starting an M.B.A. program at Case Western Reserve, I wanted to read a book that encapsulated what it meant to be a designer before embarking into the world of business and leadership. I could not have been happier with the choice of reading. There is so much to unpack in this book and so much delightful history, way more than I could have imagined. It’s incredible how little has changed about design as a practice, specifically about designing within a team and for an end user, and obsessing about the end user’s need throughout the design process. This book has information about designing for all sorts of contexts like on airplanes, boats, in cars, in kitchens, and even chapters dedicated to the future design, mistakes and mishaps, managing a design agency, and working with clients.
If you are looking for a book that explains what design is from a business perspective and would like to understand the history of design (circa 1925 - 1940), you should dive into this book. It’s a nice read.
Learnings
Historically, design has been defined not an outside-in process, but an inside-out process, which involves a combination of logic and taste to machinery.
The best design is that which is built around the human, and a good designer is one that understands the limitations and effects of the environment on the human’s behavior.
A classic definition for design is “to contrive for a purpose” and it’s a definition that extends across different disciplines such as sales and marketing.
Doing research will unveil findings that we cannot discover on our own.
Aesthetic trends come and go over the history of time, and each newer generation gets to bear the fruits of innovation from previous generations.
A classic critical job for the designer is to balance art and business as a means of bringing art into the customer’s life.
A psychological principle that designers should be aware of is that (as Henry Dreyfuss put it) “people reflect the environment and atmosphere in which they are placed.
A quote that summarizes the value of design is “A well planned product will sell better than a poorly planned product” -Henry Dreyfuss This quote extends to the design of practically anything, whether it be a room in a building, a theatre, a product, a magazine, anything.
At the dawn of industrial design there were five principles that guided the design of products, which are still relevant today: Utility and Safety, Maintenance, Cost, Sales Appeal, Aesthetics.
The relationship between a designer and a client should be respectful integration within a team.
A designer sells their services instead of a tangible product, and the artifacts they produce through their service are the results of decisions made together as a team.