George Stiny

Reading this book was like taking an extended vacation with a psychotic girlfriend attractive enough to keep you intrigued but hopelessly difficult to make sense of, the kind of person that values coming across as interesting/original much more than actually sharing information for others to build on, and in the process tries as hard as possible to blur the line between her own achiev ements and those of others. Out of metaphor, the central idea of this book (when you put shapes together you create other shapes that you can build on) is really valuable as a guide to appreciate design and how to appreciate some basic patterns and potential creative directions. The whole book however is a pedagogical disaster: it is full of repetitions and most of the time it is not clear what exactly is the point of a given example (or series thereof). Stiny's discussion of an algebra of shapes is equally frustrating because it is never explained in credible detail what class of problems this algebra can be used to solve. It's like a theory with all axioms and no theorems, one that seems to have been devised more to reassure Stiny himself of his academic credentials than to help anyone do anything interesting.… (lisätietoja)