An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present
An Introduction to Design and Culture provides a comprehensive guide to the changing relationships between design and culture from 1900 to the present day with an emphasis on five main themes:

• Design and consumption

• Design and technology

• The design profession

• Design theory

• Design and identities.

This fifth edition extends the traditional definition of design to embrace its more recent manifestations, which include service design, user-interface design, co-design, and sustainable design. It also discusses the relationship between design and the new media and the effect of globalisation and transnationalism on design. Most importantly, it looks at its contents through a new lens which acknowledges the post-industrial, post-colonial, postmodern, (and, arguably, post-design) climate of the twenty-first century and the challenges that it poses.

Taking a broadly chronological approach, Professor Sparke employs historical methods to show how these themes developed through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century and played a role within modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Over a hundred illustrations are used throughout to demonstrate the breadth of design, and examples – among them design in Modern China, the work of Apple Computers Ltd., and design thinking – are used to elaborate key ideas. The new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of design studies, cultural studies and visual arts.

1116751855
An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present
An Introduction to Design and Culture provides a comprehensive guide to the changing relationships between design and culture from 1900 to the present day with an emphasis on five main themes:

• Design and consumption

• Design and technology

• The design profession

• Design theory

• Design and identities.

This fifth edition extends the traditional definition of design to embrace its more recent manifestations, which include service design, user-interface design, co-design, and sustainable design. It also discusses the relationship between design and the new media and the effect of globalisation and transnationalism on design. Most importantly, it looks at its contents through a new lens which acknowledges the post-industrial, post-colonial, postmodern, (and, arguably, post-design) climate of the twenty-first century and the challenges that it poses.

Taking a broadly chronological approach, Professor Sparke employs historical methods to show how these themes developed through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century and played a role within modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Over a hundred illustrations are used throughout to demonstrate the breadth of design, and examples – among them design in Modern China, the work of Apple Computers Ltd., and design thinking – are used to elaborate key ideas. The new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of design studies, cultural studies and visual arts.

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An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present

An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present

by Penny Sparke
An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present

An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present

by Penny Sparke

Paperback(5th ed.)

$56.99 
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Overview

An Introduction to Design and Culture provides a comprehensive guide to the changing relationships between design and culture from 1900 to the present day with an emphasis on five main themes:

• Design and consumption

• Design and technology

• The design profession

• Design theory

• Design and identities.

This fifth edition extends the traditional definition of design to embrace its more recent manifestations, which include service design, user-interface design, co-design, and sustainable design. It also discusses the relationship between design and the new media and the effect of globalisation and transnationalism on design. Most importantly, it looks at its contents through a new lens which acknowledges the post-industrial, post-colonial, postmodern, (and, arguably, post-design) climate of the twenty-first century and the challenges that it poses.

Taking a broadly chronological approach, Professor Sparke employs historical methods to show how these themes developed through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century and played a role within modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Over a hundred illustrations are used throughout to demonstrate the breadth of design, and examples – among them design in Modern China, the work of Apple Computers Ltd., and design thinking – are used to elaborate key ideas. The new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of design studies, cultural studies and visual arts.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781032849034
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 10/29/2025
Edition description: 5th ed.
Pages: 376
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Penny Sparke is a Professor of Design History and the Director of Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University, London. Her research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century design and the modern interior with a special interest in the role of gender.

Table of Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1

Design and modernity, 1900-1945

1. Consuming modernity

2. The impacts of technology

3. The designer for industry

4. Modernism and design

5. Designing identities

Part 2

Design and Post-modernity, 1945-1990

6. Consuming post-modernity

7. Technology and design, a new alliance

8. Designer-culture

9. Postmodernism and design

10. Redefining identities

Part 3

Designing the new century, 1990 to the present

11. Consumer culture at the millennium

12. Design in the digital age

13. New designers

14. Theory and practice in the new century

15. Designing identities in a globalised world

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

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