What is beyond User Centered design? The NONOBJECT book is about designing the intangible space between the user and the product. In this book, design meets philosophy, poetry and unbound possibilities. NONOBJECT: the space between you and the object.
by Branko Lukic, with text by Barry M. Katz and a foreword by Bill Moggridge
buy it directly from MIT Press for $29
The “objective” world is one of facts, data, and actuality. The world of the “nonobject” is about perception, experience, and possibility. In this highly original and visually extravagant book, Branko Lukic (an award-winning designer) and Barry Katz (an authority on the history and philosophy of design) imagine what would happen if design started not from the object but from the space between people and the objects they use. The “nonobject,” they explain, is the designer’s personal experiment to explore our relation to the observable world.
NONOBJECT proposes a radically new approach to design: In contrast to “human-centered design,” which starts from the needs of existing users, or the “object-centered” approach, which begins with the form and function of the product, NONOBJECT takes as its starting point the mysterious and largely unexplored space in between. Through a series of dramatic explorations derived from as-yet-undiscovered materials, imagined manufacturing processes, and invented rules, Branko Lukic investigates the transformations of everyday experience that might occur if we listened attentively to what Debussy called “the space between the notes.” The accompanying texts by Barry Katz locate these projects within the cultural dynamics of contemporary civilization.”
or buy it via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders,
Books.A.Million, IndieBound, or Powell’s Books
Endorsements + Praise for the NONOBJECT book
“This is a book of ideas, concepts and provocations that are witty, thought provoking and poignant. That they don’t exist, indeed, that many of them could never exist in the world as we know it, is beside the point. By indulging his fancies, Lukic has changed the tone, tenor and nature of the current design discussion, and done the design industry an enormous service in the process. The ideas in this book made me fall in love with design all over again.”
–Helen Walters, design writer and editor at Core77, British design magazine, Creative Review
“A designer’s motto should always be ‘What if?’ It certainly is the motto of Nonobject. The fantasy of what an object should or could be becomes a way for the designer to embrace experimentation and imbue projects with a vitality that expands beyond the physical object and into our experience.”
–Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art
“Nonobject explores the space between the product and the person — exactly the place where contempo rary design should be looking. This relational space is normally explored using the tools of interaction and service design. Branko Lukić does it by developing product design fictions as triggers for new ideas—and thus for new social conversations. It is a challenging approach that brings very inspiring results.”
–Ezio Manzini, Milan Polytechnic
“A century of exponential innovation has left us in a world of too many artifacts — and too few. The result is a poverty of abundance that begs for a radical new view of design. Nonobject is that radical new view.”
–Paul Saffo, Managing Director, Discern
“Branko Lukić is the best design-fiction designer in the world. His wry and eerie metaphysical extrapolations make lesser efforts seem toylike.”
–Bruce Sterling, Author