November 2016 Academic & Specialist University of Minnesota Press

A Quadrant Book

The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design, 1945–1976 John Harwood


Paperback (Trade paperback US) | Nov 2016 | University of Minnesota Press | 9780816674527 | 288pp | 254x177mm | RFB | AUD$44.99, NZD$54.99

In 1956, IBM tapped the industrial designer and architect Eliot F. Noyes to reinvent the company's corporate image, from stationery and curtains to typewriters and computers to laboratory and administration buildings. IBM would go on to assemble a cast of leading figures in American design, including Charles Eames, Paul Rand, George Nelson, and Edgar Kaufmann Jr., who transformed the relationships between design, computer science, and corporate culture. The Interface is the first critical history of the industrial design of the computer and an invaluable perspective on the computer and corporate cultures of today.