Carroll Gantz, FIDSA, announces the publication of his new book, “The Industrialization of Design” published by McFarland & Co., Inc., a history of design from the steam age to the information age (328 pages, 150 illustrations, $55 softcover). It identifies the major personalities, organizations, styles, and evolutionary events of the profession and the industrial revolution, looking particularly at the refinement of industrial design by European designers and the congruence of American design and industry during the Great Depression. The book also includes a history of IDSA and its predecessor organizations, with its trials and tribulations of the 1970s.

Gantz received a BFA degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1953. As head of design at the Hoover Company from 1956 to 1972, and from then until 1986 as design director for Black & Decker, he was granted several dozen design patents, including the original 1979 Dustbuster cordless hand-held vacuum cleaner, B&D’s most successful product that won IDSA’s 2009 Catalyst Award. He has won numerous national design awards and has lectured internationally. He was president of IDSA from 1979 to 1980, and in 1986 was awarded IDSA’s Personal Recognition Award. From 1987 to 1992, he was professor and head of Carnegie Mellon Design Department, where he established an award-winning multidisciplinary design course (1989). He continues to serve IDSA as author of design history in Innovation and at www.idsa.org, and at www.industrialdesignhistory.com.