The Culture of Design Guy Julier

A book which states on its back cover that it ‘establishes “design culture” as a distinct discipline’, has a lot to live up to. Fortunately, The Culture of Design delivers a great deal. For those interested in the discourse of design, it ties in well with an increasing move to consider areas of culture as they affect design consumption, as evidenced by the content of such journals as The Journal of Design History, and the Journal of Material Culture, and the appearance of key texts such as Wild Things (Attfield, 2000). The recurring discussions on the role of branding are also timely, coming as they do in the wake of the major exhibition and book Brand.New (Pavitt, 2000). For those involved in design education, the book provides a link between the curriculum content of practice-based design courses and theory-based design studies areas in a useful and accessible way, and will hopefully help to produce designers who understand not only their role in the production of design, but in its consumption.