Everybody is a designer! But why? Why do we color, organize, and form the world around us - and why do we call that a profession? In this book, Thonik, an Amsterdam-based studio led by lauded designers Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven, researches eleven personal reasons why they design - from the need to create impact to a constant search for independence; from the benefits of systems to the urgency of play. Why We Design looks back on twenty-five years of design practice and speculates on the future of graphic design.

Daniel Kruger (b. 1951), widely known as a jewellery artist, presents an overview of his ceramic works, featuring 230 pieces created over twenty years. Classic examples - tulip and lidded vases, delftware and dinner services - are familiar references, which Kruger decorates with images of footballers, homoerotic nudes or casts of twigs or bones. Worlds collide, revealing our preconceptions regarding conventions that provide a manipulated view of reality. There is less interest in the spectacular; Kruger's choice of images however, leads to unexpected, provocative combinations of form with decoration. In a continual process of artistic acquisition, new interpretation and appropriation, Kruger explores the interstice between historical archetypes and kitsch within European ceramic history.