Notes on Attention

by Ralph Caplan

From the "Herman Miller tries to pay attention so that people are free to attend to what they care about. Ironically, though, the freest societies invariable create environments that militate against attention. Visual pollution is harmful not just because it is ugly but because it is distractive. And therefore destructive. Like other pollution, it destroys the balance of nature - in this case, human nature. A climate loaded with designs calmoring for your attention is a climate in which you end up paying attention to nothing...."

Paperback

Published January 1, 1978

About the author

Ralph Caplan is a contributing editor at Print magazine, a regular contributor to VOICE: The AIGA Online Journal of Graphic Design and has written articles for Design Quarterly, Interior Design, The New York Times, and House and Garden. He began his long and distinguished career in design journalism in the late 1950's as editor-in-chief at I.D. Magazine. His books include By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons (Fairchild, 2005) and Cracking the Whip: Essays On Design And Its Side Effects (Fairchild, 2005). Ralph has also written extensively for and about the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller. He is a director emeritus of the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado, an honorary member of IDSA, and, in 2005, was a writer-in-residence at Haystack Mountain School of Arts and Crafts.