Barry Katz: Publication Grant Report

21 September 2015 -

With the assistance of a DHS Publication Grant, Make it New: The History of Silicon Valley Design is complete and scheduled for publication in September 2015. Make it New is based almost entirely upon original, primary source materials, and is the first book to examine the formation of a design profession in this important region. It has three principal objectives:

The first is to show how design is a critical factor in explaining the growth of Silicon Valley, alongside the pioneering technology companies, the universities, investment capital, and intellectual property law.

A second task is to trace it back to its origins and describe the arc of its growth. Whereas to be a “designer” in 1951 meant packaging electronic components in sheet metal enclosures, designers today are addressing challenges ranging from poverty to public health to the experiential character of the emerging digital economy.

A third theme concerns their dramatic rise in acceptance. For decades designers have clamored for a place at the table alongside their counterparts in engineering and marketing. Today every major company recognizes that reliable technology is merely the price of admission to the market, and that design is the key to product success.

Because I occupy a somewhat unusual position between academia and professional practice, I have had access to an unprecedented body of resources that include university archives, corporate records, museum holdings, private collections of documents and artifacts, and some 200 first-person interviews with nearly every major figure in the 60-year history of the regional practice. This opportunity has led, unexpectedly, to some challenges.

Specifically, I have been insistent that the illustrations that accompany the text be reproduced in color—an economically difficult proposition for an academic publishing industry in the throes of a major disruption. I was able to make the case that many of the images cannot be rendered in black and white not simply because they will look better, but because they are specifically about color. Here are three examples:

1. A hand-drawing entitled, “Color Study of the HP-35 Calculator,” obtained from the archives of Hewlett Packard, shows an industrial designer’s attempt to codify the color scheme of the world’s first handheld (1972). Color was as significant to the product as form factor, materials, and ergonomics.

2. Bill Moggridge’s drawing of the first laptop computer for GRiD Systems. John Ellenby, CEO of GRiD, recalled to me in conversation that the designer typically submitted several drawings for consideration, “but that there was always one, executed with an additional dash of color, that he secretly favored.”

3. Moving forward, I was able to obtain from its designer the initial rendering of the Facebook “Like” button. Readers will note that this first experiment is the “wrong” color—a fact that is completely lost if rendered in black-and-white.

MIT Press agreed but on condition that I provide a subvention, which the DHS Publication Grant has helped me to provide. It has helped make this fascinating story as compelling as it actually is.