Jay Greene's new book on the power of design wears its affiliations right on the book jacket. The logos of all eight companies he profiles are stamped right on the cover, although perhaps Virgin Atlantic gets an extra psychological shout-out, since the subtitle and author credit seem to owe a little debt to the form of luggage tags. We here at Core77 are always happy to see new books touting the power of design to business executives, but we haven't yet figured out whether the constant onslaught of new books signifies a real change in the way companies do business, or whether its simply another signpost promising an Apple-like future to executives clueless about how to execute the changes needed to establish a design culture.
Interestingly, while, Design is How it Works takes its title from a Steve Jobs quote, Apple is not one of the companies Greene profiled. Instead, Greene's book stands as the first post-Apple design book we've profiled here. The contribution of design to Apple's success is taken as a given. Instead, the reader is only presented with Apple in the introduction, as a framing mechanism to contrast with Bang & Olufsen's equally beautiful products. What Greene aims to demonstrate is that the Bauhaus taught us that design is material beauty and simplicity (B&O), Jobs and company have taught us not to look at design, but to experience it. The following case studies fully support that thesis, but it's a pearl of wisdom or two in Clif Bar case study that should get corporate America's attention.
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