Autumn 2021

Crisis by design

Design in Crisis: New Worlds, Philosophies and Practices

Edited by Tony Fry and Adam Nocek. Routledge, £96 hardback, £27.99 paperback/eBook

Editors Tony Fry and Adam Nocek present Design in Crisis as part of an ‘ongoing conversation that aims to challenge how designers engage with the planetary crises we are living through’. Rather than viewing design as a panacea for crisis, the book begins from the position that design itself should be understood as a discipline in crisis, given its role in creating and exacerbating social, political and environmental problems. ‘This is a crisis by design,’ the editors write, evidenced through design’s implication everywhere within the ‘unfolding complexity of ecological devastation, racial and political violence, coloniality, technological futures and the brutality of modern Western culture generally’. Nocek is an associate professor in the Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies at Arizona State University, while Fry has been one of design’s most prolific and tirelessly trenchant critics for more than three decades. The book’s ten articles are divided across three sections, each with a contextualising preface by the editors …

Cover of Design in Crisis: New Worlds, Philosophies and Practices.

Design in Crisis

John-Patrick Hartnett, designer, writer, lecturer, London

Read the full version in Eye no. 102 vol. 26, 2021

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.