A fully illustrated, stylish look back at the story behind a Canadian design icon. For a decade, in the 1960s, the Clairtone Sound Corporation captured the spirit of the times: sophisticated, cosmopolitan, liberated. From its modern oiled-walnut and teak consoles to its minimalist logo and cheeky marketing materials, Clairtone produced a body of design work that is still today contemporary. Founded in 1958 by two Canadian upstarts, Peter Munk and David Gilmour, the fledgling manufacturer of hi-fi and TV consoles quickly became known for its iconic designs and masterful advertising campaigns. Its Project G stereo, winner of the silver medal at the 1964 Milan Triennale, with its space-age styling, and costing as much as a small car, was the epitome of bachelor pad cool. Famously, Hugh Hefner owned a Project G. So did Frank Sinatra. In 1967, suggesting how deeply it had come to be identified with popular culture, a Project G appeared in The Graduate alongside Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. Richly illustrated with more than two hundred images, The Art of Clairtone is a candid and intimate look at the company's skyrocketing success and sensational collapse. Through the personal and private recollections of those who knew Clairtone best, from its founders to its designers, engineers, and salesmen, and with comments from Karim Rashid, Douglas Coupland, Tyler Brule, and Bruce Mau, this elegant book captures the influence and spirit of an iconoclastic company that seemed to represent all the promise of Canada.

Originally published in 1937, this book was created to provide a survey of the conditions and artistic value of design in British industries. Through interviews with manufacturers, managers of department stores and shops, principals and teachers of art schools, commercial designers, artists, and architects, principally in the Midlands area, a composite portrait is developed. This portrait emphasises the interaction of seemingly disparate elements in the production of quality design, and shows the complexity of the process whilst remaining concise and accessible. The text is also well presented, containing a large number of illustrative examples. This is a fascinating volume that will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of British design.

Whereas science, technology, and medicine have all called forth dedicated philosophical investigations, a fourth major contributor to the technoscientific world in which we all live - that is, engineering - has been accorded almost none of the philosophical attention it deserves. This volume thus offers a first characterisation of this important new field, by some of the primary philosophers and ethicists interested in engineering and leading engineers interested in philosophical reflections. The volume deals with such questions as: What is engineering? In what respect does engineering differ from science? What ethical problems does engineering raise? By what ethical principles are engineers guided? How do engineers themselves conceive of their profession? What do they see as the main philosophical challenges confronting them in the 21st century? The authors respond to these and other questions from philosophical and engineering view points and so illustrate how together they can meet the challenges and realize the opportunities present in the necessary encounters between philosophy and engineering - encounters that are ever more important in an increasingly engineered world and its problematic futures.