Karl Aspelund

Available Winter 2014

This is a core text examining the multi-faceted world of professional design. Readers gain an understanding of the nature of design through its history from the mid nineteenth century to today's multicultural global marketplace, and learn to recognize the elements and principles of design in colorfully illustrated chapters. The design process is explored in practical terms of conceptualizing, researching, assembling, and presenting and then examined in the context of 2D, 3D and virtual environments, emphasizing user experience and the constraints and needs of client-defined creativity. Chapters open with key terms and objectives, close with multiple offerings for review and practice, while sidebars and end-boxes place focus on topics such as ergonomics, sustainability, and individual designers from a variety of disciplines.

Covering all topics common to design foundation and recognizing that all designers benefit from shared vocabulary, this book provides students with the tools to create designs that are both visually compelling and conceptually inventive. View

Karl Aspelund is a seasoned explorer and guide through the seven stages of The Design Process. Beginning at Inspiration, readers travel through Identification, Conceptualization, Exploration/Refinement, Definition/Modeling, and Communication on the way to Production. The tour is enhanced by the accompanying Perspectives of designers who travel parallel paths in the design of fashion, interiors, industrial and consumer products, and public art projects. End-of-chapter exercises help students move their own design projects from the World of Imagination to the World of Objects. Appendices recommend readings for further exploration and serve as refreshers on design elements and principles; notable designers, architects, and artists; trend analysis; and major events and influences on design from the mid-1800s to the first decade of the twenty-first century.

View

The hundred years of fashion from the 1860s to the 1970s was a time when a succession of haute couture designers—most notably, Charles Worth, Paul Poiret, Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Yves Saint Laurent—were the arbiters of fashion, and their creations the weapon of choice for power-seeking members of the aristocracy and upper class. Fashioning Society explores the ways in which high-fashion designers and their maisons influenced—and were influenced by—the fine arts as well as sociological, technological, philosophical, and political developments. By addressing the question, "What has happened to high-fashion design?" the author discusses what readers should consider when trying to understand and predict long-term trends. View