Purpose and elegance

John Heskett races through design from theory to practice, ancient to modern in Toothpicks and Logos (Oxford University Press, £8.99), and saves the hardest question for the end. Will designers just become technocrats working for the most generous paymasters or will they grapple with the “social and environmental” purposes embedded in their work? He points out the shabby design of the voting forms for the US presidential election of 2000 that confused voters and gave “no opportunity to change a mistake”. And toothpicks? Even tiny fragments of wood embody social values. The small grooves on a Japanese toothpick allows its…