MIT Press offers open access to Design Issues.

I’ve known about Design Issues, but I have to admit that my interest wasn’t strong enough to buy a copy. I don’t think I have ever seen a copy on the newsstand.

My design education has been primarily through self-discovery, so I avoided the cerebral study of my vocation that most university students have to endure. I can think of only two designers I know who study design at this level regularly: Doug Powell and Michael Johnson. And I’m sure they already have a subscription to Design Issues, and/or they are downloading every PDF at this moment.

MIT Press is migrating their products to a new platform and using this temporary product purgatory as a reason to give to the community. As you’ll see, entire articles, reviews, and critiques are available to download in PDF form for free until April 30, 2021. This offer is a fantastic opportunity for us all to exercise the part of our brain that we don’t typically engage when it comes to design. Not only should each article challenge our perspectives on design, but exploring the bibliographies is certain to produce their own rewards.

Clicking through the issues, I found three themes of interest to my journey in design. Articles on systems and methodologies, research, and heritage. And an issue devoted to the legal industry — how convenient. Here are some articles that I have downloaded thus far:

• Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking by Fred Collopy
• Incremental and Radical Innovation: Design Research vs. Technology and Meaning Change by Donald A. Norman and Roberto Verganti
• Design and Innovation: How Many Ways? by Cabirio Cautela, Alessandro Deserti, Francesca Rizzo, and Francesco Zurlo
• Managing as Designing: Lessons for Organization Leaders from the Design Practice of Frank O. Gehry by Richard J. Boland Jr., Fred Collopy, Kalle Lyytinen, and Youngjin Yoo
• On the Case Study Method of Research and Teaching in Designby Maggie Breslin eand Richard Buchanan
• Design and the Cultures of Enterprises by Alessandro Desert and Francesca Rizzo
• Speaking Italian with a Swiss-German Accent: Walter Ballmer and Swiss Graphic Design in Milan by Chiara Barbieri and Davide Fornari
• Promoting Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Abroad: The Case of Paris in the 1960s by Constance Delamadeleine