Pentagram – Living By Design

It’s 1978 and the world is getting redesigned, mostly by Pentagram it seems. This book is fantastic, and I wish I’d had it as a young designer.

Packed with the usual mix of architecture, interior, graphic and product design (with maybe a tiny bias to the product here) as well as some detailed project dissections this book also contains the first dive into the tradecraft of design. With a chunk of the rationale presented to clients to persuade and direct, we discover more of the ‘why’ of design.

The written work is a real joy too: there is an essay about product design “The first fifty years” by Kenneth Grange, a piece by Theo Crosby on architectural conservation and a revealing (and fun) description of “How Pentagram works” – along with team-at-work photos.

This book sold by the bucketload, so copies should be easily available from Amazon used books.