This surprisingly interesting book looks at the history of industrial design over the past three centuries, examining the question of just what it is that industrial designers actually do. While many accounts put the origins of the field somewhere in the 1930s, Gantz suggests that craftspeople, artisans, and other individuals were doing work now viewed as part industrial design as far back as the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Bolstering his argument with numerous illustrations and photographs, he shows how the process of design has changed over time from an individual act of creating one item at a time to industrial production systems that can create millions of identical items of a quality previously unobtainable. Gantz pays particular attention to the great influence of European designers on the field during the 20th century, and to how industrial design became an integral part of the production process in the US during the years just before the Second World War. While aimed at design students and professionals, many general readers will find this book to be fascinating reading. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)