John Heskett was a pioneering British design historian, with a particular interest in design and economics.

Design and the Creation of Value' publishes for the first time his groundbreaking seminar on design and economic value. In remarkably clear and accessible prose Heskett explores the how the key traditions of economic thought conceive of how value is created. Critically teasing out the role of design in this process, Heskett shows how design's role in innovating and creating value creating value for organisations and products can be given a firm grounding in economic theory.

Featuring examples of businesses which have successfully responded to the value of design in their practice, as well as others who have failed because of their inability to understand value-creation, Heskett looks in detail at the relationship between producers, markets, products and consumers, using these instances to offer a both a strong critique of the limitations conventional economic thought and new model of the economic importance of design thinking in value creation.

John Heskett (1937-2014) was a prolific and pioneering design academic. He worked as chair and professor of design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, spent fifteen years as professor of design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and was also a visiting professor at universities in Denmark, Turkey, Chile, Germany, Japan, and Finland.

He authored many classic design texts, including 'Industrial Design' (1980), 'German Design 1870-1918' (1987), and 'Philips: A Study in Corporate Design' (1989). A large part of his research focused on business applications for design. He was especially interested in exploring how design creates economic value, and the role of this in the design policy of governments and corporations.


Clive Dilnot is Professor of Design Studies at the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons, New York. He has taught in Hong Kong and at Harvard University, and served as director of design initiatives at the Art Institute in Chicago. He has written extensively on the history and theory of design, and his most recent work is on design ethics.

Suzan Boztepe is Associate Professor of Design at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She has written on value creation by design as well as design's ways of contributing to strategy formation and organizational change. She holds a PhD in Design from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, USA.