The Culture of Design

What is the social impact of design? How do culture and economics shape the objects and spaces we take for granted? How do design objects, designers, producers and consumers interrelate to create experience? How do new networks of communication and technology change the design process?

Thoroughly revised, this new Third Edition:

? explores the i Phone
? digs deep into the digital with a new chapter on networks and mobile technologies
? provides a new chapter on studying design culture
? explores the relationship of design to management and the creative industries
? supports students with a revamped website and all new exercises

This is an essential companion for students of design, the creative industries, visual culture, material culture, and sociology.

Editorial Reviews

This is a thoughtful update on previous editions; Julier takes time to pick up on ‘sticky’ issues and explain them in detail without sounding pedantic or over-bearing. This new edition will be a welcome addition to contemporary design culture and of use to designers and students alike.
– Dr Juliette MacDonald

The Culture of Design remains the only historically situated yet comprehensively contemporary account of how design as a creative industry materializes values into everyday lifestyles. Julier’s capacity to extend his framework to cover the large and diverse changes design has undergone – in relation to digital economies and the rise of design thinking and social design – since the last edition, attest to his analyses’ validity and power.
– Cameron Tonkinwise

Just as the domains of design studies and practice are in a constant state of evolution, this Third Edition of The Culture of Design has evolved to present a comprehensive discussion of contemporary design as a socio-technical cultural phenomenon in theory and practice.
– Professor Laurene Vaughan

The third edition of The Culture of Design has again improved upon earlier versions. It has valuable new parts on economy that improve it and open new possibilities for research. Prof. Julier has also managed to keep the valuable features of his book. I believe there will be a global market for the book, and I find it still a valuable contribution to design education as well as research.
– Ilpo Koskinen

This is a thoughtful update on previous editions; Julier takes time to pick up on ‘sticky’ issues and explain them in detail without sounding pedantic or over-bearing. This new edition will be a welcome addition to contemporary design culture and of use to designers and students alike.
– Dr Juliette Mac Donald

Few books have had the success of producing a new scholarly field in the way of Guy Julier’s The Culture of Design. This book has proved to be the cornerstone in the curriculum of courses and new educations in Design Culture Studies.
– Professor Anders V. Munch

‘Julier provides an important contemporary account of how design disciplines act and interact in the world. Furthermore, this exercise in cultural coordination is infused with academic import: he references classic thinkers in cultural and social studies such as Marx, Bourdieu, Baudrillard, Fiske, Hebdige, Williamson… to name only a few, and these ‘names’ aren’t merely mentioned; importantly, his critical analyses of these thinkers with respect to pertinent issues within contemporary design, are timely and interesting…. an important resource for the student of design… perfection as a cultural studies text’ – European Journal of Cultural Studies

‘meticulous, in-depth first-hand research is highly evident… Julier can fee safe in the knowledge that…The Culture of Design is destined to become a fixture on the A-list of recommended reading for design courses for many years to come’ – The Design Journal

‘It answers the need for a text that defends design practice from the types of postmodern critiques that attack the concept of authorship as superfluous’ – Journal of Design History

‘An excellent text, clear, well thought out and lucidly written; the balance between theoretical material, background information, and detailed analysis of examples, is very good; and it concerns an issue – design in the period of its deep convergence with advertising – which will be of interest not only to design specialists and students, but also to a broader readership in cultural studies and technology’ – Andrew Wernick, Trent University, Ontario

‘The Culture of Design offers both a very exciting critical overview and an innovative contribution to the field…. this should be a popular text book for art and design courses. It could also be an important text to support the increasingly visual turn influencing cultural studies, sociology and material and spatial culture courses’ – Barrie Curtis, University of Middlesex
– From the Publisher

„The Culture of Design offers both a very exciting and an innovative contribution to the field . . . this should be a popular textbook for art and design courses. It could also be an important text to support the increasingly visual turn influencing cultural studies, sociology and material and spatial culture courses.“
– Barry Curtis