When the creation of the tools we all use in our everyday lives is placed in the hands of today's imaginative, adept designers, the results will range from the adorable to the plain-Jane, the light-hearted to the sober. A range of their efforts over the past decade is presented in 50 Products: Innovations in Design and Materials, a summary of utilitarian objects which offer more than the expected feature of function.

The designers and manufacturers, who know that good design concerns more than shape and color, have rallied a wide range of brand-new and traditional technologies and materials for the creation of practical goods. The details of the production processes are clearly revealed through the use of hundreds of manufacturing photographs, drawings, and very little text. Design historian Mel Byars - teacher, lecturer, and author of The Design Encyclopedia - has developed a simple, colorful graphic-design system especially for this and the other volumes in the Pro-Design Series.