Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime

Wang, a Stanford professor of music and computer science, uses photo-comics starring himself and other designers and theorists to lay out his theory of technological design, which stresses a balance of practicality, aesthetics, and playfulness. He draws extensively from his own work in computerized music, sharing the progression of ideas behind projects like Ocarina, a multiplayer app that converts a cell phone into a wind instrument. But he also touches on architecture, product design, video games, and other media, unraveling the universal design concepts woven into all creative work. Wang infuses the comic with plenty of humor (a portrait of Ada Lovelace dreams of epic raves; Wang’s colleagues make music from plastic lettuce and rubber chickens) and a sense of wonder at the infinite possibilities of art and technology. That said, this nearly 500-page tome is primarily aimed at college students, designers, and computer scientists. It’s an entertaining textbook that makes good use of comic-book visuals to express ideas in a clear, enjoyable way, but even at its most charming, it may be overwhelming to the uninitiated. [em](Sept.) [/em]