What is a designer? -- Is a designer an artist? -- Design education: principles -- What is good design? -- Problems with method -- The artist: Toltec poem -- Designer as artisan -- Reading for design -- Summary: students as designers -- Explanation -- How is design work done? -- Communication for designers -- Simple graphics: a strategy -- Drawings and models -- Survey before plan -- Asking questions -- Reports and report writing -- Booklist -- Advice for beginners -- Questioning design -- Conference report -- Matchbox maxims -- The Bristol experiment -- Text references.

This book is addressed to students and practitioners of architecture and design. What is a designer does more than pose (or answer) a neat question. It sets forth the conditions under which designing is itself an open question, and under which design decisions -- and artefacts -- must show themselves to be socially answerable. Designers will find in this book a spirited account of their calling, and an exposition of central traditions in the modern movement. Students and teachers will find a wealth of discussion, drawn directly from the author's experience. Now revised and republished in this fourth edition, What is a designer returns as a standard account of its subject.