Designing is what human beings do and it is basic to all human activities. In the Bubble is about designing for "preferred situations" and "desired goals" with a focus more on people and less on devices. The emphasis is on controlling things around us by design rather than allowing things to just happen and thus be controlled.
Innovative ways of doing things form the key to Thackara's new design philosophy. Lightness, mobility, speed, locality … are all part of his design concepts. With the help of real-world examples, the author demonstrates that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impinging upon social and technical innovation. In other words, design with a conscience is central to the book. We need, says the author, to design from the edge, to learn from the world, and to stop designing for, but design with. The design focus is on services, not things - and it is more on projects and institutions.
All kinds of designers - be they aesthetic, engineering, industrial or project designers - will find the book inspiring.
"Thackara's deeply informed book presents a breathtaking new map of the design landscape. With not a whisper of evangelistic zeal, In the Bubble offers an engaging narrative as well as design principles that speak to sustainability, joy, and quality of life in increasingly complex times."
- Brenda Laurel, author of Utopian Entrepreneur, chair of the Graduate Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design
"Whatever you are designing, you will want to keep this next to you. When you worry if your design is good enough, you will want to check through the passages that you have marked, to be sure that you have provided for all the complexities that count. When you have an 'Aha!' and are confident that your design is great, you will want to check that you have matched the attributes of 'Flow'. When you have an idle moment, you will want to read through the notes, which are a good book about design in themselves."
- Bill Moggridge, international design expert and Cofounder, IDEO, Palo Alto
"We all envy John Thackara's digestive system. He is able to take in the most disparate events, locations, trends, and apparent minutiae and deliver back a synthesis of the way the world moves for the use of designers and of those who use design as a powerful life-forming tool. And to help us swallow what might otherwise be too abstract a meal, he serves it to us with parables that make the book not only an enriching but also a fun read."
- Paola Antonelli, Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, New YorkAbout the AuthorJOHN THACKARA, described as a “design guru, critic and business provocateur” by Fast Company, is the Director of Doors of Perception, a design futures network based in Amsterdam and Bangalore. He is the author of Design after Modernism, Lost in Space: A Traveler’s Tale, Winners! How Successful Companies Innovate by Design, and other books.