February 19, 2006
Chasing the Perfect: Thoughts on Modernist Design in Our Time
By Natalia Ilyin
Foreword by Susan S. Szenasy
Click here for a sample book chapter (PDF file).
According to Ilyin, “Modern design is based on deeply idealist notions, and its inherent perfectionism has dovetailed beautifully with our commodity-based economy’s need to keep people itching so that they will buy things and keep the society chugging along. I began Chasing the Perfect because I started to become aware of this collusion, this silent pressure that a language of design based in perfectionism had brought to bear on how I developed as a person.” Chasing the Perfect is especially relevant in our times as interest in graphic, industrial, and architectural design moves more and more into mainstream culture. Each of the 10 chapters features Ilyin’s accessible and often hilarious writing, which is highlighted with a broad range of images—some quite unexpected—from the designed world around us.
To purchase Chasing the Perfect: Thoughts on Modernist Design in Our Time, click here.