The Education of a Design Writer

By Steven Heller and Molly Heintz Writing is designing, and writers are designers. Mastering the elements of different writing styles is as important in describing a designed work as an understanding of color, texture, and material form. The design writer must make the prose as necessary and exciting to read as a designed object––from the simplest business card or product packaging to the grandest monument––must be to see and to use. This book is for the student or the expert, the novice or the professional, who seeks to communicate. With real-world examples of how and what to write when critiquing, explaining, discovering, introducing, and interpreting a piece of design, it presents a tantalizing world of possibilities for any design writer. The collected essays include a range of styles and disciplines, from journalism, scholarship, criticism, and business. Contributors include Sarah Boxer, Akiko Busch, Liz Danzico, Jarrett Fuller, Colette Gaiter, Karrie Jacobs, Mark Kingsley, Julie Lasky, Warren Lehrer, Rob Walker, Michele Y. Washington, and many more! Explaining design means writing intelligibly and creatively. This book covers it all, for and through those who practice, chronicle, critique, and observe graphic, product, industrial, and architectural design. Designed by Landers Miller Design Cover design by Alexandra Mooney Published by Allworth Press, 2025 Softcover, 312 pages, full color offset, 6 × 9 inches ISBN: 978-1-62-153841-7