The Experience Book: For Designers, Thinkers & Makers

 This is a book about an alternative approach to design theory and the making of experiences.

To make experiences is to be human. Shamans, architects, chefs and politicians are all experience designers. Tapping into much of what makes us a hyper-cultural species, their designs possess the power - for good and bad - to transform lives.

Divided into a guidebook and a sourcebook, the first half of The Experience Book begins by explaining what it is about the human mind that is drawn to the designed experience and then employs this knowledge to suggest a loose method or framework for creating these experiences. The sourcebook, meanwhile, explains and curates a collection of designs, some from the best of humanity, some from the darkest chapters of history.

Beautifully presented, The Experience Book is one of the first publications about the attributes that comprise what is fast becoming a recognised discipline. Encompassing an eclectic range of written forms, illustrated by a broad range of drawings and photography, and backed by historical and contemporary examples from the worlds of architecture, branding, fashion, music, art, sport and business, it introduces the maker of experiences as part ethnographer, storyteller, master planner and performance artist.

Challenging the orthodoxy of function, reasserting process over monument and product, delighting in the unexpected, and championing the spectator over the spectacle, this is a book for anyone interested in the power of design, be they designer, thinker or maker.