Design was the boom industry of the last decade, and it has helped to create the superficially more 'caring' image that currently exists in our society. Yet the newsworthiness of design conceals a disturbing ignorance of the profession's values and ambitions - even among designers themselves. Design generates much heat but little light: we live in a world that has much design consciousness but appallingly little design awareness.

Nigel Whiteley analyses design's role within the consumer society, and discusses what our obsession with it tells us about the present state of our own culture.

Design for Society is not an anti-design book; rather, it is an anti-consumerist-design book, in that it exposes what most people would agree are the socially and ecologically unsound values on which the system of consumerist design is constructed. The author reviews the implications for design of the Green movement, the growing impact of feminism, and the ideas of 'socially responsible' designers. In so doing, he prepares the ground for a more self-aware and just development of design.