Design: Creating Good-Looking Objects That Work

A store, a gas station or a typewriter can raise the spirits and make life easier

Most 1981 design was not bad. It was awful. But the few new urban places, buildings, industrial products and graphics that were good, were very, very good. The awfulness was not just a matter of bad taste. A little kitsch in dull surroundings can be as endearing as a whiff of horse manure in the city. The dismaying pollution of the cityscape, like that of the language, stems from illiterate and, worse, semiliterate pretentiousness.

The result is visual...

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