Thinking Objects: Contemporary Approaches to Product Design

Thinking Objects: Contemporary Approaches to Product Design is an innovative, wide-ranging guide to great product design. This book reveals how designers can learn to read the signals an object sends, interpret meaning, discover historical context and use those messages in their own new product designs.

Globalisation, technology, the media and the need for a sustainable future are all part of contemporary product design. This comprehensive guide helps students and designers everywhere to incorporate these influences and more.

Thinking Objects: Contemporary Approaches to Product Design provides an essential reference tool that will enable the reader to find their own style and succeed in the industry.


Tim Parsons is a product designer, writer and lecturer. He has worked with manufacturers in Britain and Europe and has exhibited widely. He has contributed articles to publications including Blueprint and Phaidon’s Design Classics.