Bruno Munari

A long-overdue English translation of Munari's seminal tract on the everyday value of architecture and design education The first ever English translation of Bruno Munari's Design and Visual Communication (1968) fills a gap in Munari's output for the English-speaking world and provides a highly relevant guide to bridging architecture and design education and everyday life. Published in 1968 after Munari was invited to the Carpenter Center at Harvard to teach, the book transforms over 50 lessons, class materials and letters addressed to the city of Milan, into a book on the future of art, architecture and design. Conceived as a living volume, the book is written to inspire current and future designers to push beyond past events, however recent, and develop new tools to see and understand tomorrow's world. Accompanying the facsimile reproduction of the original volume are in-depth contextual annotations by Jeffrey Schnapp. As a Munari scholar and design historian, Schnapp has spent years unearthing the radical potential of critical historical material. His annotations and micro-interventions throughout the facsimile reprint seek to fulfill Munari's call for an evolution of the book in form and content and highlight how this work is as relevant today as when originally published. Bruno Munari (1907-98) was an Italian artist, designer and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art and in nonvisual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning and creativity.

One of the last surviving members of the futurist generation, Bruno Munari's Design as Art is an illustrated journey into the artistic possibilities of modern design translated by Patrick Creagh published as part of the 'Penguin on Design' series in Penguin Modern Classics. 'The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living thing' Bruno Munari was among the most inspirational designers of all time, described by Picasso as 'the new Leonardo'. Munari insisted that design be beautiful, functional and accessible, and this enlightening and highly entertaining book sets out his ideas about visual, graphic and industrial design and the role it plays in the objects we use everyday. Lamps, road signs, typography, posters, children's books, advertising, cars and chairs - these are just some of the subjects to which he turns his illuminating gaze. How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. Bruno Munari (1907-1998), born in Milan, was the enfant terrible of Italian art and design for most of the twentieth century, contributing to many fields of both visual (paint, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphics) and non-visual arts (literature, poetry). He was twice awarded the Compasso d'Oro design prize for excellence in his field. If you enjoyed Design as Art, you might like John Berger's Ways of Seeing, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'One of the most influential designers of the twentieth century ... Munari has encouraged people to go beyond formal conventions and stereotypes by showing them how to widen their perceptual awareness' International Herald Tribune