I’ve been trying to write a review of Natalia Ilyn’s book Chasing the Perfect for some time but stuff keeps getting in the way. Too bad. People should read it. I’ve read it twice (and parts of it a third time.) It is, like all of her writing, smart, funny, and just plain well written. She’s one of those rare design writers who can really write. Like her previous book, Blonde Like Me, it plays with the sort of social/literary theory that plagued, er, informed MFA programs in the ’90s but makes it real and useful (not to mention interesting and enjoyable.)
Chasing the Perfect is a personal story, like one of those “I overcame bulimia and a Powerball addiction with the help of God, my cat, and the people at the William Morris Agency” except that it’s about how much design matters. Ilyn is a graphic designer but the book is about design more broadly. I don’t want to give things away but she claims that Walter Gropius played a part in her mental breakdown. And the Bauhaus Defense seems a lot more convincing than the Twinkie Defense did. Even if you’re too young to remember the Twinkie Defense, you’re not too young to read a book that makes a good case for how important design really is.
Buy it or check it out of your local library. Read it. I’m going to read it again. In three weeks I’m going to write a bit more about it. By then you’ll have plenty to say, too.
seems interesting enough. I'll have to check it out.
On Jul.13.2006 at 08:37 AM