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by Paolo Martegani and Riccardo Montenegro.
Birkhauser V/A, 2000
Distributed in the U.S. by Princeton Architectural Press
96 pp. paperback.
ISBN: 3-7643-6296-0
Reviewed by Mike Mosher, Assistant Professor, Art/Communication Multimedia, Saginaw Valley State University, University Center Michigan 48710 U.S.A. E-mail: mosher@svsu.edu


This might be a good small volume to assign a design class in the US, for it is elegant and profusely illustrated with a variety of the latest hot industrial products and laboratory concept proofs, many of which are European and rarely seen by designers in the United States. It has credible short introductions and expecially choice imagery of Robots, Ubiquitous Computing, Artifical Animals, "Multimedia Objects to Wear", communications and guidance devices. It groups other sample images to illustrate concepts of transparency, autonomy of the parts.

Paolo Martegani writes six chapters that include the topic categories listed above, and Riccardo Montenegro follows up with two chapters on design history and process. Unfortunately, sometimes the text is a thicket, and other times it's leaden. For example, "Practically all objects are becoming multimedia oriented" is clunky and explains nothing. Elsewhere the book would have benefited from a technical reviewer, as when "Joe's Law', attributed to "Bill Joe of the California Company SUN", sounds suspiciously like something put forth by Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems, Inc. and deserving accuracy. Darragh Henegan's English translation from the original Italian seems rushed and needs more sandpaper and polish.

Despite these problems, the pictures in DIGITAL DESIGN make it worthwhile for the bookshelves of designers or design students, and arouse the reader's curiosity about the strengths of the other books in this series.

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