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The Senses: Design Beyond Vision

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A powerful reminder to anyone who thinks design is primarily a visual pursuit, The Senses accompanies a major exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum that explores how space, materials, sound, and light affect the mind and body. Learn how contemporary designers, including Petra Blaisse, Bruce Mau, Malin+Goetz and many others, engage sensory experience. Multisensory design can solve problems and enhance life for everyone, including those with sensory disabilities. Featuring thematic essays on topics ranging from design for the table to tactile graphics, tactile sound, and visualizing the senses, this book is a call to action for multisensory design practice.

The Design Beyond Vision is mandatory reading for students and professionals working in diverse fields, including products, interiors, graphics, interaction, sound, animation, and data visualization, or anyone seeking the widest possible understanding of design.

The book, designed by David Genco with Ellen Lupton, is edited by Lupton and curator Andrea Lipps. Includes essays by Lupton, Lipps, Christopher Brosius, Hansel Bauman, Karen Kraskow, Binglei Yan, and Simon Kinnear.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published May 15, 2018

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About the author

Ellen Lupton

88 books367 followers

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5 stars
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for Yujin Oh.
4 reviews
February 14, 2024
journeygroup let me spend parts of my workday to read and grow as a designer (#blessed fr) !!!

this book made me realize how much certain people devote their lives to studying & creating accessible products and spaces and IDEAS. tldr it made me feel lik i contribute nothing to society but it was v good thumbs up woooooot
Profile Image for Brie.
10 reviews
November 20, 2018
Well-written collection of essays from experts in different design fields; easy to understand by someone (eg. me) who isn't well-versed in design terminology. Beautifully-designed book featuring illustrations and photographs throughout. I only wish I could have gone to the accompanying exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt in NYC!
Profile Image for Seb Swann.
180 reviews4 followers
December 8, 2018
“Our shared environment can be improved when consumers, designers, and manufacturers keep the diversity of users in mind. Making products and spaces universally acceptable - adjustable, communicating through different senses, and fitting a variety of needs - can support everyone. We all have different abilities, and at different times of our lives we may call on different skills.”

If you like books about inclusive design; thought-provoking and enlightening, reading this collection changes the way you consider, appreciate, and think about designing.
Profile Image for Carmen.
53 reviews14 followers
November 17, 2022
I bought this from the Cooper-Hewitt bookstore and loved it! This book is centered around designing with consideration of the other senses beyond just vision, and how multi-sensory design improves accessibility for the disabled or elderly. It was thought-provoking and stretched my imagination of all the ways objects/experiences can interact with people who use them.

My favorite was the section on smell where I learned facts like: there's no universal way to classify smells, perfumers are secretive about formulas because you can't patent smells the way you can patent the design of an interface, and almond is probably used in a lot of Christmas recipes because their enduring smell makes them good at memory formation (most smells are fleeting).

There are plenty of high-res photos and examples of multi-sensory work throughout the book. I'd recommend this to any designer, but especially graphic designers to expand their range beyond the visual.
Profile Image for Brandon Biggs.
3 reviews
October 9, 2018
The author is spot-on in describing blindness culture and designs that blind people prefer. I am sure the discriptions of other disabilities is spot-on as well. Because the book talks about technology, it will be somewhat out of date in a few years, but as of 2018, everything is still very relevant.
Profile Image for Maria.
1 review
October 26, 2021
A new and eye opening approach to everyday design. The main thought throughout the book was that making our environments more accessible will benefit everybody. I definitely recommend reading this book for learning to not take things for granted and understand how some seem-to-be-trivial design decisions can affect people’s lives and ability to function in our society.
Profile Image for David B.
32 reviews
August 20, 2022
Really interesting reading. Changed how I perceive art and how I may make art in future. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 8 reviews

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