New Books Network Maggie Gram, "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History" (Basic Books, 2025)
Oct 22, 2025
Maggie Graham, a cultural historian and designer at Google, dives into the multifaceted world of design in the 20th century. She explores how design encompasses not just aesthetics but human-centered approaches and problem-solving. With captivating stories about figures like Eva Zeisel and Charles Eames, she emphasizes the power of beauty and play in design. Graham also discusses the limits of human-centered design within corporate contexts and warns of AI's potential impact on UX roles. Plus, she highlights the importance of diverse experiences in design teams.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Design Is Multiple Histories
- The word "design" expanded across the 20th century from drawing to many meanings like beauty, function, problem-solving, human-centeredness, experience, and thinking.
- Each meaning arose historically and none is inherently more "right" than the others.
Eva Zeisel’s Beauty From Survival
- Maggie Graham centers Eva Zeisel as a vivid life story showing how personal trauma shaped a designer's commitment to everyday beauty.
- Zeisel survived Stalinist prisons by attending to tiny moments of beauty, which later guided her design ethos.
Function’s Political Roots
- Design-as-function intertwined with a libertarian, techno-utopian impulse resisting government planning during the New Deal era.
- That political strand still informs modern rhetoric linking design, tech, and market freedom.
