Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things

By leading design thinker Ellen Lupton and her twin sister Julia Lupton, Design Your Life shows how design is about much more than what's bought at high-end stores or the modern look at IKEA. Design is critical thinking: a way to look at the world and wonder why things work, and why they don't.

Using humor and insight Ellen and Julia explore the practical side of everyday design, looking at how it impacts your life in unexpected ways. Find out what's wrong with the bras, pillows, potted plants, and the other hopeless stuff you use, buy, clean, water, or put away everyday. Discover how to secretly control the actions of those around you by choosing and placing objects carefully. Find out how roller bags are threatening civilization, and how the layout of your own house might be making you miserable.

Illustrated with original paintings of objects both ordinary and odd, Design Your Life shows you how to evaluate the things you use, and how to recognize forms of order that secretly inhabit the messes of daily life, be it a cluttered room or a busy schedule.

Use this book to gain control over your environment and tap into the power of design to communicate with friends, family, and the world.

"A book about design so smart and fun and unpretentious and easy to love." ―Kurt Andersen, author of Heyday