International survey of workplace design in a book titled Total Office Design

Total Office Design: 50 Contemporary Workplaces 

Featuring 50 cutting-edge projects from around the world, this international survey of workplace design is an great resource for architects and designers facing the challenge of creating innovative workplaces and also for students in architecture and design. Abundantly illustrated, Total Office Design includes over 480 detailed illustrations, including plans and high-quality photography. The book, compiled and written by design journalists from OnOffice magazine, Kerstin Zumstein and Helen Parton, will be published in UK by Thames & Hudson in August 2011.

The book is organized into three colour-coded sections for ease of use. Part 1 showcases low-cost workplaces created for small companies. Part 2 is a collection of medium-sized projects, all of which place a strong emphasis on environmental sensitivity and getting the most from a restricted budget. Part 3 is a selection of offices designed for large companies; here too the aim is to be as eco-friendly as possible, as well as to provide spaces that promote productivity, creativity and enhanced interaction between employees. 

The projects in each section are located across the globe. From Selgas Cano’s semi-subterranean, tubular office in a forest near Madrid, to the ‘living skin’ of Harmonia 57 in São Paolo, each project proves that workplaces needn’t be boring, expensive or harmful to the environment.

The authors: Kerstin Zumstein is an editor and journalist specializing in design, architecture and travel. She launched the leading office interior monthly magazine onoffice in 2006. Helen Parton is a London-based design journalist and former features editor of onoffice magazine who specializes in design, interiors and the built environment. 

Total Office Design
50 Contemporary Workplaces
By Kerstin Zumstein and Helen Parton
Published by Thames & Hudson
Publication date: August 2011
489 illustrations, 423 in colour
23.0 x 21.0cm - 320pp
PLC (with jacket) - £24.95

Thames & Hudson 
London, UK
www.thamesandhudson.com

The ABC van De Design Politie

ABC van De Designpolitie is a thick, dynamic book in which ideas about the mentality and design attitude of the graphic designers De Designpolitie are arranged in alphabetical order (such as ‘Damn’ on failed projects, or ‘Rocket Science’ on their simple, against the grain approach). The colourful presentation ranges over many implemented and non-implemented projects, ideas, failures, fascinations, photographs, reflections and articles. The Designpolitie consists of Richard van der Laken and Pepijn Zurburg. The Designpolitie is known for its fresh, deceptively simple and direct designs and are responsible for such things as the visual column Gorilla in the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant. The ABC is more a workbook, a process book or an inspiration book than a portfolio. Numerous projects, are presented both seriously and with irony and self-mockery.

Valiz Publishers.. Text/authors: Louise Schouwenberg, Emily King, David Snellenberg, e.a. .. Editors: Richard van der Laken, Pepijn Zurburg, Louise Schouwenberg, Astrid Vorstermans .. Photography: Gerrit Serné

Louise Schouwenberg is an Amsterdam-based design critic, curator, and she teaches at the Design Academy in Eindhoven (NL). She writes about Dutch product design: she compiled a book on Hella Jongerius (Phaidon, 2003), and wrote articles on Jurgen Bey, Droog Design and others. Recently she started writing on graphic design (e.g. on Joost Grootens). Louise Schouwenberg wrote smaller and longer essays for the entries of the ABC.

Emily King is a London-based writer and curator specializing in graphic design. She wrote an MA thesis on film title sequences and a PhD on typeface design of the late 1980s and early 1990s, focusing on the design of digital type. She is the design editor of frieze magazine and also a regular contributor to design magazines including Dot Dot Dot, and Eye. She is the author of Restart: New Systems in Graphic Design (2001) and Robert Brownjohn: 1925-1970 Life and Work (2005). Emily King Questioned the Designpolitie on their work, which fills the entry Q of the ABC.

480 pages.. 21 x 15 cm.. Hardcover.. English.. € 29,50.. Book's cover (c) Valiz - All rights reserved - http://www.valiz.nl/en/ABCoftheDesignpolitie

Resolve to Do Good Design in 2009

New Title from David B. Berman Examines Role of Design in Peoples’ Lives

Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World, a provocative book that explains why the largest crises we are facing today have design at their core. Author David B. Berman offers a powerful and hopeful message that will inspire readers to do good design in 2009 and beyond.

Designers create so much of what we see, what we use, and what we experience. How did design help choose a president? Why are people buying houses they cannot afford? Why do U.S. automakers now struggle to compete? Why do we really have an environmental crisis? Design matters. Like never before.

Do Good Design is a call to action: It alerts designers to the role they play in persuading global audiences to fulfill invented needs. Berman outlines a more sustainable approach to both the practice and the consumption of design. All professionals will be inspired by the message of how one industry can feel better about itself by holding onto its principles. Today, everyone is a designer. And the future of civilization is our common design project.

In this time of unprecedented environmental, social, and economic crises, designers can choose what their profession will be about: inventing deceptions that encourage more consumption—or helping repair the world.

An AIGA Design Press book, Do Good Design is published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.

Readers can become involved in the Do Good movement, take the online pledge, and learn more by visiting www.davidberman.com/dogood.

About The Author

David B. Berman is a strategic consultant with over 25 years experience in graphic, interface, and accessibility design. He has traveled to 20 countries as an expert speaker, serves as the Ethics Chair for graphic design in Canada, and as a vice president of Icograda, the world body for graphic design. Clients include IBM, the International Space Station, the Sierra Club, and Canada’s largest federal government departments.

http://www.peachpit.com/

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