Design, Second Edition: The Definitive Visual Guide (DK Definitive Cultural Histories)

Saw this book at my local book store.Loved it at first glance.Searched Amazon app (with bar code scan within a second, easy to use!) and found a (much) better price,(with the famous free prime 1 day shipping as always)This book is easy to read, provides high quality photos and visualizations of great design in human history,the content is collected in a smart and professional way, not those book that are poorly made and rush to be published (for profit) under a big brand name.This book is great to open to any random page,and read at any sequence you like,read for any period of time,at any occasion,anywhere at home or in office (before covid).This book is full of inspirational designs in the past hundred year of human (technology) history.This is the reason I fall in love with it.After 1 year owning the book (and almost enjoyed all its contents), now I am back for more, more of books in this kind, I would say a light visual encyclopedia, or heavy magazine taste of collection-of-visual book.Perfect as a gift, a home warming gift a gift bringing to a party, or even a gift to a smart and curious 10 year old ----- Oh I so would longing some one give this book to me when I was a curious kid at 10 years old, I could be influenced and grow to be a different man if that were true.

It is suitable for ages 8 years and up. The illustrations are beautiful ! It is a well made and heavy book. highly recommended.

This book is great, but Amazon will throw it in a slightly too big box with no padding and send it out. It will arrive with the spine and the edges bent and rubbed away. I’d rather buy it someplace else for full price than get a “deal” and have a damaged book. So if you don’t care what your book looks like b/c you only care about the content, this is the book for you and order it here to get it much cheaper. The content is incredible if you want to learn about all the different design eras. If you think that a new book should be actually new instead of damaged, don’t trust Amazon to ship it to you. I ordered it twice (2nd time was a replacement for the first damaged book) and then I just gave up. I wouldn’t buy a used book that looked the way these two books looked.

Wow! This book is spectacular. I love all of the design categories represented and the genres covered. I can’t wait to spend more time savoring it…it is true eye candy. A must for all designers…graphic, furniture, product. Makes a great gift.

My sister is a graphic designer and I bought her this book for Christmas. She absolutely loved it and now she wants all the books in this series.

Well organized and visually stunning survey of design in several areas. Ticks all the right boxes from furniture and architecture to typography and ceramics. Even bikes and guitars.I also liked the sidebars on key individual designers.

Big book is filled with illustrations and explanations of design from Ancient Greeks to Modernism. Not always in a way that appeals to me. It shows design but extraction of the essence of that design is up to the reader. There are omissions, like a quote by Hans Wegner about chairs but not a single example of his wonderful style. More than half of the book, over 200 pages is devoted to the left-behind, the old, the antique that would have no reason to exist today except as a form of nostalgia for things past. -And then we jump back and forth in time with individual examples compared for similar qualities. Finally the 50's and 60's show up with Charles and Ray Eames, Modernism, Minimalism and Contemporary being linked back to earlier styles. I think you have to read it all and try to get the sense of Design through a sort of osmosis, but at least it's a good reference book. The problem is that every designer has their own vision. At the back is an A to Z list of Designers with descriptions of their work, but this isn't like going to the Bauhaus for a lecture, or getting to participate, hands on, in creating something new. Scattered through the book are designers, telling you in a single paragraph about design, what it is, should be, can be. It doesn't seem to be enough.It leaves the impression that maybe you know more about design than this book does.

High quality content and images.