I just finished reading Henry Dreyfuss’ Designing for People. This book was on several ‘must read’ design book lists and reviews said this was a classic about Industrial Design. Sold!

The book was originally published in 1955 with Dreyfuss providing updates and an additional chapter in 1967. I really liked how Dreyfuss included photos of products that his firm was involved with, everything from airplanes to heavy industrial machinery to bank vaults to systems that air traffic controllers use.

In the first chapter, Henry defines the task of the designer

... what we are working on is going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some way used by people individually or en masse. If the point of contact between the product and the people become a point of friction, then the industrial designer has failed. If, on the other hand, people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient - or just plain happier - the designer has succeeded.

Who is a designer?

He must be part engineer, part businessman, part salesman, part public-relations man, artist ...

Dreyfuss earlier in the chapter named Leonardi da Vinci as the designer-ideal.

“Joe and Josephine” are a common theme throughout the book and the title of the second chapter. These are the people we’re designing products for.

One of the stories I really enjoyed in the book also highlights a key skill for product designers and product managers: the ability to learn. Dreyfuss describes a conversation with the head of a magazine. He discloses to the magazine publisher that he knows nothing about the magazine business and key aspects like typography, printing and engraving. But he could learn if they retain his services, which is what happened.

Dreyfuss lists the framework that they use for every project in Chapter 12 “The Five-Point Formula”. They are,

  1. Utility and Safety
  2. Maintenance
  3. Cost
  4. Sales Appeal
  5. Appearance

In “Relationship of Designer to Client”, Dreyfuss describes several different ways in which clients engage an external designer. One of these is commonly overlooked but very important: an external designer can bring new ideas into an internal design team. While the internal team may be competent, they often lose their edge due to the meetings, politics and dullness from working on the same thing day in, day out “ … so that in time he loses his eagerness and his originality and takes the easy way.” The external designer wants none of those things, but only to create successful products.

For me personally, I was reassured to learn that its never too late to become an industrial designer, Dreyfuss reminds us that Michaelangelo was 72 when he started working on St Peters.

The last chapters are Dreyfuss looking into the future and describing how our homes, transportation, our furnishing and in the 1967 addition, even computers. In the last chapter written in 1995, it was amazing to see how many changes he saw that actually happened despite scolding himself in the 1967 addition for not thinking even more into the future.

"We search incessantly for new ideas, new methods, new materials. We are not content to stand still or to accept present processes as the final word. If we are to progress, we must constantly evaluate the status quo, and if what it stands for is no longer valid, we must abandon it. We look for new points of view, new perspectives. We have found that the creative process is stimulated by new experiences and new knowledge."

I’d recommend anyone who is interested in products and design to read this book.