The book D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself, edited by Ellen Lupton, is a collection of small-scale graphic design projects that aims to democratize design. While it sparks important discussions, the book's disjointed structure and arbitrary stylization may mislead readers about the role of professional designers. However, it offers valuable insights into design details and an icon system for cost and time investment.
D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself is a book that has sparked significant debate in the design community. Edited by Ellen Lupton, it is a collection of small-scale graphic design projects aimed at making design accessible to everyone. The book's structure is somewhat disjointed, with chapters oscillating between different contributors, which can be mildly chaotic for a linear read. This disjointedness is particularly evident in the separation of websites and blogs, which may not align with the current understanding of their integration. One of the book's criticisms is its arbitrary stylization, particularly in the business card design chapter, which may mislead readers about the role of professional designers. However, the book has its merits. It pays attention to design details and uses an icon system to represent cost and time investment, which is a clever tool for comparison. The page composition is refined and inviting, with sentences rarely falling across columns or breaking onto the following page. Overall, the book offers a mix of subversion, frugality, creative expression, crafty satisfaction, and pre-professional encouragement, reflecting the current state of the design discipline.
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The book itself, though, is also worth a look.
A do-it-yourself guide to small-scale graphic design projects, D.I.Y. gets most of its page count from object-specific chapters ranging from T-shirts to CD packaging that highlight possible stylistic directions, common mistakes, and production techniques.
The scattered nature of the book first reveals itself when Julia Lupton’s chapter follows with references to Karl Marx and weavings of financial and social capital into the value of the do-it-yourself movement.