ABSTRACT

Being a professional designer is one of the most intellectually rewarding careers. Learning to become a designer can be tremendous fun but it can also be frustrating and at times painful. What you have to do to become a designer is not often clearly laid out and can seem mysterious. Over the past 50 years or so we have discovered a great deal about how designers think. This book relies upon that knowledge but presents it in a way specifically intended to help the student and perhaps the teacher. Bryan Lawson’s classic book How Designers Think has been in print since 1980 and has gone through four editions to keep it up to date. This book can be seen as a companion volume for the design student.

chapter 1|12 pages

Design as a set of skills you can learn

chapter 4|20 pages

Drawing in design

chapter 5|10 pages

Design schools

chapter 6|10 pages

Starting to design

chapter 7|9 pages

What’s the problem?

chapter 8|14 pages

The components of design thinking

chapter 9|11 pages

Managing the design process

chapter 10|14 pages

What designers know

chapter 11|10 pages

The design tutorial

chapter 12|10 pages

The crit or design jury or review

chapter 13|11 pages

Design conversations

chapter 14|10 pages

Design concepts and schemata

chapter 15|17 pages

Guiding principles

chapter 17|14 pages

Having more than one idea

chapter 18|16 pages

Parallel lines of thought

chapter 19|14 pages

Some expert tricks of the trade

chapter 20|24 pages

More on conversations with media

chapter 21|9 pages

Getting into a design project

chapter 22|12 pages

The structure of design problems (1)

chapter 23|10 pages

The structure of design problems (2)

chapter 24|7 pages

Navigating your design problem

chapter 25|10 pages

How are you getting on?

chapter 26|10 pages

Moving on