Ode to Happiness
Steidl, 2011
Hardcover, 40 pages, $55

Alexandra Grant (MFA 2000) illustrates this book by the celebrated actor and writer Keanu Reeves. It is a grown-up's picture book about making the best of a bad situation, a charming reminder not to take oneself too seriously. In the tradition of a classic "hurtin' song," Reeves's text externalizes a melancholy internal monologue and subtly pokes fun at it. Grant's images, delicately realized in somber inky washes, reflect the dark and light, the pathos and humor, of the text. Neither entirely earnest nor wholly ironic, Ode to Happiness is both a meditation and a gentle tease about how we cope with life's sorrows.

Collective Action Toolkit
frog design, 2012
Digital, free

David Sherwin (Interaction Design faculty) is a principal designer at frog design. He and Erin Sanders (also Interaction Design faculty) are the primary creators of frog’s new Collective Action Toolkit (CAT), a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. The toolkit provides a dynamic framework that integrates knowledge and action to solve challenges. Designed to harness the benefits of group action and the power of open sharing, the activities draw on each participant’s strengths and perspectives as the group works to accomplish a common goal.

Read more about the CAT on frog's design mind blog.

Read an interview with David Sherwin in FastCoDesign about how the CAT came about.

100 Best Bikes
Laurence King Publishers, 2012
Paperback, 224 pages, $19.95

Zahid Sardar (Visual Studies faculty) authored this collection of the best and most popular bikes to be found anywhere right now, for every kind of cyclist, whether you are a BMXtreme or mountain bike enthusiast, a keen tourer or racer, a city commuter or courier, or simply fascinated with the constantly advancing mechanics and engineering of folding and other innovative bike designs. Sardar is a design critic who has written about industrial design and architecture for two decades in the San Francisco Chronicle, where he served as design editor. He also writes for Dwell magazine and other international design publications.

Zygote Quarterly
Issuu, 2012
Digital, free

Thomas McKeag (Industrial Design faculty) cofounded the digital magazine Zygote Quarterly earlier this year. The magazine is devoted to the nexus of science and design, where they meet in biologically inspired problem solving. It focuses on the informed professional and presents material that is at a level between the peer-reviewed journal and the popular press. In 2012 it was nominated by the Digital Magazine Awards in two categories, Launch of the Year and Science and Nature, competing against magazines such as Scientific American and New Scientist.