Nature is a designer’s sourcebook, full of shapes and colours that have inspired visual invention since civilisation began. It provides most of the materials from which things are made, and is the basis of all systems of ornament and decoration. Designing with nature not only helps to find functional solutions, but also alters perceptions of beauty and meaning.

Nature is a designer’s sourcebook, full of shapes and colours that have inspired visual invention since civilisation began. It provides most of the materials from which things are made, and is the basis of all systems of ornament and decoration. Designing with nature not only helps to find functional solutions, but also alters perceptions of beauty and meaning.

Alan Powers traces the ways that designers’ have explored nature’s potential down the ages, from the four thousand-year-old jewellery of Ur to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Looking beyond formalistic comparisons, he explores our complex relationship with nature and observes the remarkable shift of ideas that is currently taking place. Driven by the threat of ecological disaster, science and art have begun to come together and offer startling visions of a sustainable future through a better understanding of nature’s processes. Design not only holds up a mirror to nature but can also offer us the chance to overcome the alienation produced by modern society and plan for a better world.

A multitude of beautiful pictures develops the theme of natural influence in architecture, engineering, home interiors, domestic products, fashion and graphic design, accompanied by a commentary that will stimulate and inform.

introduction

a natural history of design

design in nature

shells and skeletons

nests and habitats

creature comforts

fur and feathers

attraction and display

bibliography

index and acknowledgements