The history and controversial roots of the social design movement explored through the life
and work of its leading pioneer Victor Papanek. In Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World
Alison Clarke explores the social design movement through the life of its leading pioneer the
Austrian American designer theorist and activist Victor Papanek. Papanek's 1971 best seller
Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change has been translated into 22
languages and never fallen out of print. Its politics of social design anti-corporatism and
environmental sustainability have found renewed pertinence in the twenty-first century and
dominate the agendas of design schools today. Drawing extensively on previously unexplored
archival sources Clarke uncovers and contextualizes the movement's controversial origins and
contradictions.
