i wanted to let you know I’ve written a book. it looks like a design book and reads like a memoir. it’s an 11 X 11 inch, over 300 image in a 450-plus page art object book geared towards anyone who has had a stake in design and architecture and appreciates design-related storytelling. here are some pages from the beginning of the design of me and from select pages.
above> front cover of my book // below> inside front spread.
about this book — this is my first book. i wrote it to chronicle my own history. that’s what you do if you care about who you are and/or what you did, and when you get an incurable rare cancer diagnosis. writing a memoir might seem self-serving, especially when the title is the design of me. i’ve concluded it is. unless you add content that you deem driven to inform your readers, something useful to them, content that will benefit them rather than just info all about you.
as the book materialized, i found solace in thinking about my potential audience, that it didn’t matter if they knew me or not. i told myself that someone will find what i say more useful than useless. that’s all the motivation i needed.
i bring to this enterprise a 50-year design career, 30 years of which have made me an expert in my field. at least i think so. however, in the past 10 years, my thoughts, beliefs, and ideas defining what a designer does have greatly changed. so have my opinions about what constitutes good design.
i’ve also been a teacher of design. my interactions with students, me teaching them as well as them teaching me, caused me to rethink how to teach as well as what to teach.
and lastly, as i’ve shaped design, with its unusual expansion of touching so many walks-of-life endeavors, i’ve learned about how design ultimately shaped me as a designer and as a person.
~ron kovach
