Digital Design: A History

Digital design has emerged as a dynamic force in society, intersecting with art, film, business, engineering, theater, music, and artificial intelligence. Stephen Eskilson traces its history from its precursors in the nineteenth century to its technological and cultural ascendency today, providing a multifaceted account of a digital revolution that touches all aspects of our lives. He covers topics ranging from graphic and product design to type, web design, architecture, data visualization, and virtual reality, and paints compelling portraits of key innovators. The book also reveals how many of the digital practices we think of as cutting-edge actually originated in the analog age and how the history of digital design is as much about our changing relationship to forms as the forms themselves.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 17 October 2023
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Digital design has emerged as a groundbreaking force in society, occupying a fluid and experimental space where product design intersects with art, film, business, engineering, theater, music, and artificial intelligence. Stephen Eskilson traces the history of digital design from its precursors in the nineteenth century to its technological and cultural ascendency today, providing a multifaceted account of a digital revolution that touches all aspects of our lives.

We live in a time when silicon processors, miniaturization, and CAD-enhanced 3D design have transformed the tangible world of cars and coffee makers as well as the screen world on our phones, computers, and game systems. Eskilson provides invaluable historical perspective to help readers better understand how digital design has become such a vibrant feature of the contemporary landscape. He covers topics ranging from graphic and product design to type, web design, architecture, data visualization, and virtual reality. Along the way, he paints compelling portraits of key innovators behind this transformation, from foundational figures such as Marshall McLuhan, Nam June Paik, and April Greiman to those mapping new frontiers, such as Jeanne Gang, Jony Ive, Yugo Nakamura, Neri Oxman, and Jewel Burks Solomon.

Bringing together an unprecedented array of sources on digital design, this comprehensive and richly illustrated book reveals how many of the digital practices we think of as cutting-edge actually originated in the analog age and how the history of digital design is as much about our changing relationship to forms as the forms themselves.

This book's distinctive cover design features an overlay of raised dots printed in clear ink.

Weight: 1178g
Dimension: 196 x 283 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691181394