Design Meets Disability (The MIT Press)

Amazon.com Price: $19.98 (as of 06/12/2019 04:07 PST- Details)

Categories: , , , , , , ,

Description

How design for disabled people and mainstream design could inspire, provoke, and radically change every other.

Eyeglasses have been transformed from medical necessity to fashion accessory. This revolution has come about through embracing the design culture of the fashion industry. Why will not design sensibilities also be applied to hearing aids, prosthetic limbs, and communication aids? In return, disability can provoke radical new directions in mainstream design. Charles and Ray Eames’s iconic furniture used to be inspired by a molded plywood leg splint that they designed for injured and disabled servicemen. Designers lately might be in a similar fashion inspired by disability.

In Design Meets Disability, Graham Pullin shows us how design and disability can inspire every other. Within the Eameses’ work there used to be a healthy tension between cut-to-the-chase problem solving and more playful explorations. Pullin offers examples of how design can meet disability lately. Why, he asks, will not hearing aids be as fashionable as eyewear? What new kinds of braille signage might proliferate if designers kept both sighted and visually impaired people in mind? Can simple designs keep away from the need for complicated accessibility features? Can such emerging design methods as “experience prototyping” and “critical design” complement clinical trials?

Pullin also presents a series of interviews with leading designers about specific disability design projects, including stepstools for people with restricted growth, prosthetic legs (and whether they may be able to be both honest and beautifully designed), and text-to-speech technology with tone of voice. When design meets disability, the diversity of complementary, even contradictory, approaches can enrich every field.

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Arts and Photography » Decorative Arts and Design » Furniture Design » Design Meets Disability (The MIT Press)

Recent Products