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A review by mimmyjau
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
2.0
4 stars for the ideas in this book. 2 stars for its execution.
Joyful reads like a typical pop. non-fiction book. Each chapter touches on a different driver of joy and follows a relatively similar framework - it starts with an anecdote of how the author serendipitously stumbled upon an example of this type of joy, followed by a few conversations with designers, artists, architects, or urban planners that specialize in this type of aesthetic, then a few examples of scientific research suggesting that this type of joy is intrinsically linked to our primitive survival as a species, and finally, some tips on how to incorporate this design principle into your home and your life. The concepts in each chapter are, for the most part, mutually exclusive from one another.
With that being said, the book was a huge source of inspiration for things I could be doing (both personally and professionally) that I otherwise wouldn't have considered.
Two main criticisms:
1) Clearer examples of how to incorporate each principle into industrial design. The author focuses almost exclusively on the visual / aesthetic elements of each principle and much less on the experiential component of interacting with a product.
2) Pictures of examples she references. I had to keep jumping back to my phone to look up examples of what or who the author was referring to.
Joyful reads like a typical pop. non-fiction book. Each chapter touches on a different driver of joy and follows a relatively similar framework - it starts with an anecdote of how the author serendipitously stumbled upon an example of this type of joy, followed by a few conversations with designers, artists, architects, or urban planners that specialize in this type of aesthetic, then a few examples of scientific research suggesting that this type of joy is intrinsically linked to our primitive survival as a species, and finally, some tips on how to incorporate this design principle into your home and your life. The concepts in each chapter are, for the most part, mutually exclusive from one another.
With that being said, the book was a huge source of inspiration for things I could be doing (both personally and professionally) that I otherwise wouldn't have considered.
Two main criticisms:
1) Clearer examples of how to incorporate each principle into industrial design. The author focuses almost exclusively on the visual / aesthetic elements of each principle and much less on the experiential component of interacting with a product.
2) Pictures of examples she references. I had to keep jumping back to my phone to look up examples of what or who the author was referring to.