WE ASkED DozENS
of DESIGNERS to
CRItIquE u. S. DESIGN.
thEy’RE Not A
bAShful buNCh.
STRAIGHT
TALK ON
AMERICAN
DESIGN
AmericA hAs AlwAys been
greAt At crude innovAtion
And bAd At refinement.
BJarke inGels
we may be the court
jesters of design or
the royal clowns or
the nimble athletes
or the lucky lottery
winners of design.
miCke Y mCmanUs
Design is the oil
in the machinery
of capitalism.
it Drives our neeD
for proDucts
anD moves the
economy forwarD.
sean adams
AMERICAN DESIGN IS...
Bold
Confident
Youthful
Adventurous
optimistiC
user-friendlY
AffordABle
strAtegiC
expressive
Clever
BrAssY
prACtiCAl
streAmlined
ColloquiAl
KitsCh Y
prAgmAtiC
optimistiC
demoCrAtiC
BrAsh
BrAve
CApitAlistiC
funCtionAl
BrAnded
experienCe-BAsed
puritAniCAl
exuBerAnt
unrestriCted
diverse
ABundAnt
inventive
What great american brands do is
reconcile simplicity With complexity.
Brian Collins
We lead the world in not taking
ourselves so seriously. OMG,
we are just designers. Enjoy it.
JoHn Ja Y
We’re coming out of a sort of
punch-drunk phase of american
design Where an overzealous
giddiness led us to believe that
design could “solve” any problem.
Padd Y HarrinGton
In the past 15 years, the U.S. market has collectively
become more interested in design. But this interest is
still in tandem with a demand for the right price.
miCHele Caniato
It is easier to innovate more fundamentally here. Simply put,
the scale of demand in this country combined with a cultural
expectation that newer, different things are likely to be better
than traditional, familiar things makes it much easier to
experiment with new things here.
larr Y keele Y
the ubiquity of
AmericAn Design
mAkes it Almost
invisible.
Jerr Y HellinG
AmericAn Design
fAils in A few
Distinct wAys: it
generAlly lAcks
“Design Poetry”
AnD fAils to
instill culturAl
vAlues into the
business worlD.
Gadi amit
given our relative youth as a nation
as Well as our ideals of independence
and freedom, if american design can
be categorized as anything, it can be
found in its struggle for identity. We
do not have history to celebrate and
so We celebrate the future: What can
be versus What Was.
andrew J. razeGHi
AmericA isn’t A lone ecology; thAt myth is no
longer sustAinAble. AmericA hAs A role to fill
in the world, but it is just A teAm member now.
GraHam BUtton
