John Heskett: A Testament

We are saddened by the recent passing of John Heskett (February
25, 2014). He was instrumental in the development of design his-
tory and design studies since their inceptions in the late 1970s.
John’s degree in economics, at the London School of Economics,
shaped his thinking about design whether as an historian, a consul-
tant, or a policy maker. He taught at institutions in Europe, the
United States, and Asia throughout his career, but he was also influ-
ential in worlds of business and government where he often
addressed business leaders and high-ranking government officials.
John believed strongly that design could make a major difference to
the advancement of national economies; and, he helped many peo-
ple—in positions of influence—to understand that concept and to
develop policies and plans in which they could make design central
to their own activities. He understood design’s relation to econom-
ics and was able to speak persuasively on that issue.

As a professor, John taught several generations of design
students and contributed meaningfully to their understanding
of design’s potential in society. Studying with John meant that
you—as a design student—had to learn about all the factors that
surround the planning, production and distribution of design—
particularly, economics, marketing, and policy. John may have
been the first design studies scholar to strongly emphasize the need
for national design policies. He made a particularly strong contri-
bution to the development of design policy and strategy in Asian
countries, which have recently connected to design more so than
countries in the West. His lectures in Hong Kong, China, South
Korea, Japan, and Thailand helped government officials, business
people, and educators devise plans to improve the understanding
and practice of design in their respective countries. John was
equally sought after in Europe and the United States for lectures
to economists, managers, and design researchers. He contributed
to the curriculum at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute

doi:10.1162/DESI_e_00292

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DesignIssues: Volume 30, Number 4 Autumn 2014

of Technology, which puts a particularly strong emphasis on
design’s relation to business strategy. At the Hong Kong Polytech-
nic University, where he spent his last years as a professor, he
served as a consultant to the President and helped to revamp the
design curriculum.

John’s scholarship as a design historian also contributed
new directions to an emerging field—one in which he was among
the first of professors. He was drawn to design history in Germany,
perhaps because design was so closely allied with institutional
policies there. He wrote a particularly cogent article about design
in the Third Reich, which continues to be helpful in explaining
how Hitler used design to advance his political ends. His book
about design at the Dutch appliance and electronic firm Phillips
was as much about institutional policy as it was about the products
the company made. However, John had his broadest influence as a
design historian with his brief history textbook, Industrial Design,
which remains in print and in use after more than thirty years.
In that book, John was the first design historian to include the
design of military technology in his narrative of industrial design’s
development. This is an approach that few other design historians
have followed up on, though it serves as a much-needed counter-
part to the design of furniture, appliances, and other objects of
everyday life.

John had a relation to Design Issues from the first issue,
where he reviewed Arthur Pulos’ American Design Ethic and a
monograph on Russel Wright. He also played a seminal role in
shaping one of the journal’s first special issues, Design in Asia and
Australia. Most of the contributors to that issue, in fact, were John’s
colleagues. He served on the journal’s editorial board in the early
1990s when he was teaching at the Institute of Design.

With our understanding, today, of design’s robust part in
the unfolding of modern history and how design can contribute
to business strategy and economic policy, we owe much to John
Heskett. The continued engagement of Design Issues and other jour-
nals in these fields would be far less rich without his contributions.

Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carl DiSalvo
Dennis Doordan
Victor Margolin