Shaping Things

This is such a short read, and such a good read - it really is a tool, more of a reminder. The way some people put a model of their dream car on their desk, to remind them their goal, this book should be kept around, read once or twice a year to remind oneself to put purpose, intelligence, and diligence into what you create. I think I'll start giving copies of this to new employees...

If you're looking for a book on sustainable design, the intertwining of the informational and the material, and RFID, look no further. Sterling's account is more than a book for designers. Though some angles tend to originate from design-related topics, the implications and responsibilities pertaining to design cannot belong to a community of designers per se. That's a pretty self-evident idea of course, but allow me to elucidate. When Sterling argues that "we need a designed metahistory", this pertains to the idea that the information that is related to objects / spimes / shaping things needs to be designed. Given the fact that more and more objects are tagged, and thereby enrolled in a global information architecture, this implies that 'design' has the ability to influence the way we relate to object-data. And this is by no means a scenario that is sci-fi: take the EPCglobal architecture as an example. Sterling is perfectly aware of this. For me, the book provided a framework in which many more things can be deployed.. But I suppose the book's effects will depend on the mindset of the reader. The capacity of the book to create new concepts and new levels of thought is obviously there. To me, the ability of a written work to do this is what makes a book great.

...or perhaps it's just that "design" is an extremely broad category. Sterling presents a futurity that is at once realistic and utopian, frightening and hopeful. This book would be useful for not just anyone designing anything, but anyone concerned with the future, how to achieve real sustainability, or how all that geeky stuff (you occasionally read about in the Wired you pick up at the airport) will really effect you. I agree with another reviewer that the actual print design of the book is a hindrance, which is ironic; my distaste for it was only made worse by having already heard Sterling brag on it during a talk. But even with this beef, I have to give it a full five stars based on the content alone.

This slim book, readable in a few short hours is, IMO, a very thoughtfull view of the issues facing design in a post modern world, with some insightful guideposts about designing in this world. I think it is way ahead of the curve in the area, discussing issues that I never see in any amount of design magazines and books that populate the shelves of bookstores. This is not a book about the form of things - the typical fetishist approach of most books about design - but the information that is wrapped around stuff as it makes its way through its cycly of production, use and discard. Sterling writes clearly and concisely on the future and design of informational products, something he calls SPIMES, which contain information on time, place and state. His ideas are thought provoking. I have already recommended this book to some designer friends - I hope they pick up a copy and read it. Highly recommended.

A "Spime" may or may not eventually exist in the real world of the near future. A Spime is an object plus it's RFID or wireless ID that tracks the object during it full lifecycle. What Sterling is trying to do is close the loop on manufacture and design in the modern age. No wait, scratch that: He's really saying that closing the loop via a Spime or something like it will be inevitable. What do I mean by "closing the loop"? In the book Sterling makes the convincing case that the full impact of industrial output and design is not currently accounted for in the cost and design of objects made and sold. Rather, we "export" a lot of the impact into the future in the form of industrial waste and so on. Spimes will allow intelligence and statistics about the full impact and lifecycle of objects to be fedback into future capitalism and industry. In fact, Sterling argues that, for future designers and manufacturers, the data representation of an object is potentially far more valuable than the sale price or the object itself. And as crazy as that sounds, in some industries (most notably credit cards) that's already true. And the strength of this book lays not in the eventual reality of Spimes or the industrial environment Sterling envisions, but in the fact that Sterling attempts to sketch out something akin to a solution to current social & envionmental problems that actually makes sense in the current economic climate of the world. It's a good try, at least. In terms of the layout, typography and design of the book, it is a hell of a lot of fun. There's plenty of pithy, epigrammatic phrases sprnkled thoughout the book, but over against a backdrop that is large convincing. It's a cute little book that you will definitely spend some time thinking about.