Designing: A Journey Through Time, 2nd Edition

Designing: A Journey Through Time is a sequel to Design FAQs, the author’s first book. Both books were written as introductions to
the artificial world of design and designing. Like Design FAQs, Designing: A Journey Through Time has the same audience in mind:
students beginning their studies in design, architecture, and the humanities as well as anyone interested in exploring how design
occurs and how it impacts our lives. Designing: A Journey Through Time (2nd edition) has been revised and includes new sections
on Canadian design and sustainability, as well as a new chapter on the role of design in your future.
Designing: A Journey Through Time explores the human process of designing by way of The Designing Triad, a simple
diagrammatic way of demystifying the designing process by focusing on its three principal players: the User, the Designer, and the
Maker. The author takes the reader back to the earliest days of designing—some 3.4 million years ago—when the User, the
Designer, and the Maker were not separate entities but were found in one and the same person. The author then proceeds to
show how that triad of players evolved, first with the User as someone separate to the Designer/Maker and then to the situation
that we have today: the User, Designer, and Maker as three independent players.
Designing: A Journey Through Time has a clear, readable, and concise style that provides an accessible and instructive
introduction to the history, development, and fundamental principles of the designing process. It engages the reader by describing
the evolution of designing as a metaphor; that is, a journey through time—from the earliest stone artifacts to today’s complex
world of buildings, planes, and high technology.
Designing: A Journey Through Time is underpinned by an important premise: designing is a universal and human activity that has
permitted mankind to co-exist with the Natural World by changing what exists to what is desired in the form of an Artificial World.
As a journey over time, the book develops this premise in nine chapters. Diagrams and photographs appear throughout the book.