UPDATE: This book is in progress – head over here for details: designmtw.com.

My next book is about teaching basic design literacy to everyone.

The pitch: Everything we use, from social media, to our homes, to our highways, was designed by someone. But how did they decide on what was good for the rest of us? What did they get right and where have they let us down? And what can we learn from the way these experts think that can help us in how we make decisions in our own lives?

The goal won’t be to teach readers to be designers (which takes experience and practice). Instead, it’s to get them to design literacy. Which means to understand why design is so important, the basics of how good designers do it, and to be able to think critically about what’s well designed and what isn’t in their daily life and the world. It’s also a book designers will want to read, as it explains design in a fresh, inspiring and powerful way.

The plan is to make this a fun community project (join the list here). It will be funded through Kickstarter, so we control the intellectual property and can donate parts of it away (to schools or other groups) as we choose. Backers will be able to help the project as it develops, including participating in UX methods I’m using to write the book itself.

Project advisors include: Jared Spool (founder of UIE), Kim Goodwin (author of Designing for the Digital Age & former VP of Design at Cooper), Christina Wodtke (lecturer at Stanford and co-founder of IIA), Lisa deBettencourt (co-founder of Pearl Partners & co-founder of IXDA), Sam Aquillano (Executive Director, Design Museum Foundation), Laura Klein (Principal at Users Know), Nick Finck (Distinguished Faculty at General Assembly, CXO at Craft & Rigor) and Bob Baxley (former design director at Apple and Pinterest).

The team has two important (part time / freelance) roles I’m hiring for:

Graphic Designer. You will be the lead designer for the book (cover design experience please), as well as for the related materials evangelizing design itself through the project website, the kickstarter campaign, fun marketing materials like posters, stickers and other side projects you propose. You’re expected to be a collaborator on the book itself, from the title to the chapters themselves and to participate with the project community. I’m open to working with a design studio for this role, or a Voltron-like team of freelancer friends, as this job description is admittedly unicorn-y.

Design researcher. A book is a designed object just like any other and the researcher will apply user-research methods during the development of the book and related materials. They’ll work with the author to define a research plan for the book (which may never have been done before from a UX context before!), help with general research (who already teaches design literacy well?), conduct research and offer findings, and make recommendations to the author and other collaborators. You will be invited to collaborate on the book itself, from the title to the chapters themselves and help with the project community.

To apply, do the following:

1. In 10 sentences or less tell me why design literacy is important to you
2. Provide a link to your resume or LinkedIn
3. When are you available to start?
4. Designers: include a link to the related bits of your portfolio. Researchers: a link (or brief summary) of the most related, or the most unusual, research you’ve done.
5. Bonus points for a reference or two.
6. There is no step 6! Since it’s nice when applications have one less annoying step than you expect.
7. Basic info on your rates / fees for an unusual project like this
8. Send the above to this address, with the subject “for hire: design literacy (designer or researcher)”

And/or if you want to follow this project, please join this list for updates. Thanks!