What It Means to Be a Designer Today

AIGA's Eye on Design presents a provocative collection of essays and interviews that cover a wide-reaching examination of the profession of design today and its impacts on society and culture.

Eye on Design is an editorial platform from AIGA that has, for the last decade, covered the ins and outs of the design industry. From documenting bold new work from global designers to chronicling the field's most critical issues, their reported stories, op-eds, interviews, and conversations help designers make sense of the world and place their profession within a broader context. Weaving together original and previously published content from some of the most important writers in today’s design conversation, this book for designers encapsulates wide-reaching topics that strive to answer an essential question: What does it mean to be a designer today?

Organized into three parts—Reflections, Questions, and Ideas—this book covers the most pressing issues and provocations that designers face in our current world, including:

• The evolution of personal branding
• Teaching design history
• The cult of minimalism
• The perils of hero worship
• Designers’ role in conspicuous consumption
• The meaning of visual sustainability
• And more

Contributors include the book's editors, Liz Stinson and Jarrett Fuller, and such outstanding design writers as Rick Poynor, Anne Quito, Briar Levit, Cliff Kuang, and many more. Accessible, engaging, and conversational, What It Means to Be a Designer Today is an enduring resource and vibrant gift book that speaks to design students and educators, working designers of all levels, and anyone interested in graphic design.

Liz Stinson is a journalist and editor. She has covered the intersection of design, culture, and business for publications including WIRED, Fast Company, Architectural Digest, and more. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jarrett Fuller is a designer, writer, educator, editor, and podcaster. He is an assistant professor of graphic design at North Carolina State University and the host of the podcast Scratching the Surface. He lives in Raleigh, NC.