Limited Language, Rewriting Design: Responding to a Feedback Culture

by Colin Davies

Limited Language is a web-platform, co-founded in 2005 by Colin Davies (University of Wolverhampton) and Monika Parrinder (Royal College of Art, London), for generating writing and discussion about the design process. Over the last four years the site has collected a series of essays and commentary dealing with the key issues which effect and shape visual communication today. limited rewriting design , examines the relationship between traditional printed formats (the book) and new digital ones (blogging). Hybrid media forms are already transforming design. How might they be used to rethink design writing? limited rewriting design creates an alternative and innovative "writing space" – the reflection and distance which can be offered only by a book. Each of its sub-sections comprises an article from the website, followed by a reflection/response to the topic by the responses raised on limitedlanguage.org, while rich visual imagery in colour illustrates each article/response. "This is a rare book about design that embraces ideas with as much enthusiasm as objects. It illustrates its premise by showing feedback culture in action. If you find yourself wanting to join in the dialogue with thoughts of your own – and you will – their website is ready and waiting." – Rick Poynor

Genres: Design

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2005

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

"As such, we have never needed design and design writing more to help make sense of our world." These are Limited Language's last words, and I couldn't agree more. The book itself, though, gets about halfway there in delivering on this promise. I've never really visited the Limited Language blog, but as evidenced from this book, the editorial (and commentary) content is refreshingly ambitious, intellectually. The book is most successful when it directly addresses the issues around the intersection of design and technology with concrete examples and applications. Unfortunately, many of the writers are still beholden to Postmodernism's sacred cows—Derrida, Debord, Barthes, Bourriaud, Baudrillard, McLuhan et al—which often clouds the arguments in unnecessary abstraction. Considering, though, how obtuse academic writing can be, Limited Language succeeds often enough to warrant interest.