I’ve just started read­ing Design as Art by Bruno Munari and after only a few pages in I’m already won­der­ing how it took me this long to get round to read­ing this book. Just thought I’d share a quick pas­sage from the first chapter.

Any­one work­ing in the field of design has a hard task ahead of him: to clear his neighbour’s mind of all pre­con­ceived notion of art and artists, notions picked up at schools where they con­di­tion you to think one way for the whole of your life, with­out stop­ping to think that life changes — and today more rapidly than ever. It is there­fore up to us design­ers to make known our work­ing meth­ods in clear and sim­ple terms, the meth­ods we think are the truest, the most up-to-date, the most likely to resolve our com­mon aes­thetic prob­lems. Any­one who uses a prop­erly designed object feels the pres­ence of an artist who has worked for him, bet­ter­ing his liv­ing con­di­tions and encour­ag­ing him to develop his taste and sense of beauty.