180
Information Design Journal 18(2), 180–181
© 2010 John Benjamins Publishing Company
doi : 10.1075/idj.18.2.12bau
Matthew Frederick’s book is a collection of one hundred
and one statements, paragraphs, guidelines, or short
checklists. Each statement appears on a spread of the
book: the right-hand page contains the text while the
left-hand page displays a picture. All pictures are black-
and-white drawings made by the author. The drawings
show examples or metaphors explaining the text. The
layout of every page of text uses two font sizes: a bigger
one for the first sentence and a smaller one for some
additional explanation. The author decided not to use
titles for the statements and not to group them in chap-
ters. There is no page numbering; instead each of the 101
chunks of content bears a bold number printed in a black
box on the right edge of each text page. This unconven-
tional and minimalist book does not feature a table of
contents, a glossary, or a bibliography. As the book title
suggests, the sequence in which the content is presented
is most likely derived from the order of appearance in
an architecture curriculum. The book has a small format
and landscape orientation and features a hard cover
made of extraordinarily thick cardboard with deep
printing on the front cover. All these elements of design
and content organization give the book much simplicity,
specific character, and a consistent appearance.
Many of the statements and principles presented in
the book are not limited to architecture, but are of general
interest to designers, or easily applicable to other design
disciplines. Several guidelines refer to proper drawing and
sketching, while others explain the important steps of a
good design process. Some are practical tips or refer to an
effective presentation of design projects.
The book is both remarkable for its clear, understand-
able content, as much as for its refreshing and convincing
way of presentation. As the author states in the preface,
the book can be left open on the desktop of a designer,
kept in a coat pocket and read taking public tranporta-
tion, or perused randomly when in need of a jump-start
to solve a design problem. However, the author also
points out that when applying the book’s content in prac-
tice it is necessary to consider the innumerable excep-
tions and caveats to each lesson taught.
The presentation of the content makes it very clear
that the book does not attempt to be more than a short
summary of a complex discipline. Most pictures and
statements in the book are good starting points for
further discussion. It would be possible to use them
for presentation slides with only small modification.
As the 101 statements are not enough to cover a whole
discipline, the reader might feel inspired to create more
guidelines in Frederick’s style.
“101 Things” became a bestseller with 130000 English
copies printed so far and has been translated into twelve
Matthew Frederick:
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
MIT Press, 2007
Reviewed by Konrad Baumann
FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences, Austria