How Designers Think

by Bryan Lawson

Overview

How Designers Think is based on Bryan Lawson's many observations of designers at work, interviews with designers and their clients and collaborators. This extended work is the culmination of forty years' research and shows the belief that we all can, and do, design, and that we can learn to design better. The creative mind continues to have the power to surprise and this book aims to nurture and extend this creativity. Neither the earlier editions, nor this book, are intended as authoritative prescriptions of how designers should think but provide helpful advice on how to develop an understanding of design.In this fourth edition, Bryan Lawson continues to try and understand how designers think, to explore how they might be better educated and to develop techniques to assist them in their task. Some chapters have been revised and three completely new chapters added. The book is now intended to be read in conjunction with What Designers Know which is a companion volume. Some of the ideas previously discussed in the third edition of How Designers Think are now explored more thoroughly in What Designers Know. For the first time this fourth edition works towards a model of designing and the skills that collectively constitute the design process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138405363
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Edition description:	4th ed.
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	7.44(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Part 1 What Is Design?; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 The Changing Role of the Designer; Chapter 3 Route Maps of the Design Process; Part 2 Problems and Solutions; Chapter 4 The Components of Design Problems; Chapter 5 Measurement, Criteria and Judgement in Design; Chapter 6 A Model of Design Problems; Chapter 7 Problems, Solutions and the Design Process; Part 3 Design Thinking; Chapter 8 Types and Styles of Thinking; Chapter 9 Creative Thinking; Chapter 10 Guiding Principles; Chapter 11 Design Strategies; Chapter 12 Design Tactics; Chapter 13 Design Traps; Chapter 14 Designing with Others; Chapter 15 Design as Conversation and Perception; Chapter 16 Towards a Model of Designing;

Editorial Reviews

Drawing on his own teaching experience, designers' accounts of their work, and the writing of design methodologists and theoreticians, designer-psychologist Lawson explicates design problems and the design process. This updated and expanded edition brings the context for design forward into the 1990s. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

'An extremely readable book, due in part to the soundbite-sized chapters'
Architects Journal, 19.01.06

Reviews of previous editions:
'It has a great virtue of being thorough and readable... excellent bibliography.'
Built Environment
'This book makes a valuable, if individualistic contribution to the literature of design theory.'
Science and Technology Press
'The author succeeds in demystifying his subject for the lay reader.'
New Scientist
'The chapters are well written in a readable form and packed full of data undeniably valuable to students.'
ASI Journal
'Its success is well deserved, because it is clearly written, the arguments are logically presented, and the design process is indeed demystified.'
Architectural Science Review

From the Publisher