Designing things : a critical introduction to the culture of objects / Prasad Boradkar.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Theorizing things: disciplinary diversity in thinking about objects -- Valued possessions: the worth of things -- Making things: labor in production -- Producing things: a history of systems of manufacture -- Beautiful things: the aesthetics of surfaces -- The greed imperative: user needs in product design -- Planned obsolescence: unsustainable consumption -- Objects as signs: what do things mean? -- The obsession of possession: fetish objects.

Designing Things provides the reader with a map of the rapidly changing field of design studies, a subject which now draws on a diverse range of theories and methodologies - from philosophy and visual culture, to anthropology and material culture, to media and cultural studies.