Books like Make it new by Barry Kātz

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. In reality, most innovations are borne from rigor and discipline. Breakthrough ideas-whether for a new bicycle, an advertising campaign, a treatment plan for diabetes, or a program aimed at tackling the national obesity epidemic-emerge not by chance, but by studying and embracing the immediate challenges we encounter every day in our offices and homes, laboratories and hospitals, classrooms and conference rooms, and in all the spaces in between. We don't simply realize solutions; we design them. In this book Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, introduces us to design thinking. Design is not just about creating elegant objects or beautifying the world around us. The best designers match necessity to utility, constraint to possibility, and need to demand. These design thinkers rely on rigorous observations of how we use spaces and the objects and services that occupy them; they discover patterns where others see complexity and confusion; they synthesize new ideas from seemingly disparate fragments; and they convert problems into opportunities. Design thinking is a method in which genius, in the end, is not required. Design thinking is valuable not just in so-called creative industries or for people tasked with designing products. Rather, it is often most powerful when applied to abstract, multifaceted problems: improving a guest experience at a hotel, encouraging bank customers to save more, or developing a compelling narrative for a public-service campaign. It has been used by organizations such as Nokia to rethink global gaming and by the Department of Energy to encourage conservation. Design thinking is now being applied to address a wide range of issues and concerns, from the delivery of clean drinking water in the developing world to improving the efficacy of airport security and microfinancing. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a blueprint for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking-an approach for creative problem solving-into all facets of their organizations, products, or services to discover new alternatives for business and society as a whole. Written with imagination, humor, and vision, this vital and inspiring guide is essential reading for anyone confronting the challenges of today in order to create the opportunities of tomorrow.

"It is often said that we are living in a new golden age of design. Our gadgets, appliances, and cars are sleeker and more elegant than they've ever been; in our free time, we trawl the internet for pictures of flawless minimalist interiors; and even the great industrialist of our time-Steve Jobs-is admired more for his visual savvy than his technological inventiveness. And yet with Instagram and Pinterest at our fingers and great design more available-and more affordable-than ever, we've had no guidebook to this ever-fascinating field. Though it's an inescapable part of our lives, there has been no single book that could, in one fell swoop, tell us everything we need to know about design. Enter Hello World. The design critic for the International Heard Tribune, Alice Rawsthorn has spent many years reckoning with the history of design and with its place in contemporary life, and Hello World is the extraordinary summation of her research and reporting. Rawsthorn takes us on a trip through design that ranges across continents and centuries, and wherever she goes, she discovers inspiring, thrilling examples of resourcefulness, inventiveness, and sheer vision. From the macabre symbol with which eighteenth-century pirates terrorized their victims into surrender, to one woman's quest for the best prosthetic legs, to the evolution of the World Cup soccer ball, Hello World describes how warlords, scientists, farmers, hackers, activists, and professional designers have used the complex, often elusive process of design to different ends throughout history. Hailed as a "rapid-fire and illuminating ode to contemporary design" (Telegraph) and "an extremely readable tour of the subject" (Financial Times), Hello World is a major work that radically broadens our understanding of what design can mean, and explains how we can use it to make sense of our ever-changing universe"--

"Norman Bel Geddes designed everything from Broadway sets to Chrysler cars; from the first all-weather stadium to Futurama, the prescient 1939 World's Fair exhibit that would go down as the most popular of all time. In The Man Who Designed the Future, B. Alexandra Szerlip tells the astonishing story of a 9th grade dropout with a Midwestern twang who presided over a seismic shift in American culture--a moment in which entertainment became immersive, people became consumers, and the country came to look the way it does today"--