The Experience Book has gone to print

35,000 years of fine examples, 20 years of thinking and talking about it,?seven?years of researching and two years of Dave Waddell ?and I actually writing the thing... and at last?The Experience Book, all 287 pages of it, is out of our hands and with the printers in Madrid! A thought that is both deeply nerve-wracking and thrilling in equal measure!

Beyond my giddy excitement - which will only rise given the book?doesn’t?launch?until 29th September - here?are a few words taken from the cover which might better set the scene:

Los Angeles transformed into a vast arena for the 1984 Olympics. An Italian pastry chef who lives as a hobbit. A secret London event celebrating the life of Amy Winehouse. The sapeurs of the Congo’s use of clothes as a weapon. The humble umbrella turned into a potent symbol of protest in Hong Kong.

Uniting these apparently disparate phenomena is the notion of the designed experience. Each is a manifestation of the human imagination in lived space and time, each an example of the human capacity to intervene in the material world to create experiences that leave the individuals, groups and cultures that live them changed, and which are changed by them in turn.

Challenging the hegemony of function, prioritising process over product, delighting in the unexpected and championing spectator over spectacle, The Experience Book models the kind of interactive, non-linear, reciprocal and democratic experience that it takes as its subject. Whether read cover-to-cover or dipped into at random, it is a book for anyone interested in how human beings make and remake the world around them.

And?if you want to look a little closer (or maybe even pre-order!),?do visit our lovely publisher's website:

https://www.blackdogonline.com/product/the-experience-book/

I hope you will?enjoy?the book (and find it useful!)... and do let me know if you would like to come to either the London, Brighton?or?Melbourne launches in late September and early October! More information to follow on that!!

All the very best, Adam

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And a last but very important note:

Books are not written only by their authors, least of all one that purports to be about the necessity of the co-designed experience. We have much to be grateful for. Thank you, all of you below, for your kindness: you made this happen.

Abe Davies Alexis Foreman Alex Maclean Anton Jacques Amy Lamé Anna Danby Andrew Grant Andy Sharp Anna Saunt Anne Scapetis Arve Podsada Krognes Ben Walters Ben Johnson Cameron Gray Caroline Ellerby Celine Bobe Charlie Cannon Charlotte Boyens Charlotte Wright Dr Chris Marshall MBBS FRCA Claire Godeaux colin grant Craig Laurence Bamford Daphne Fordham-Smith Daryl Johnson David Bacon Dianne Battersby Fabien Riggall Felix Barrett Gerard Corcoran Greg Saunders Hamish Makgill Heidi Volpe Hugo Warner Jackie Friend James Scroggs James Waddell Jenna Gradidge Jo Alderson Jono Waddell Joseph Giacomin Josh Cunningham Karl Diakite Kim Cook Laura Darby Libby Herbert Madeleine Tate Margrethe (Mags) Andersen Mandi Howells Marie Klinte Meryl Meisler Michael Wolff Don Morris Lyda Myles Lucas Nathaniel Hansen natasha bidgood Nicky Ryan Norion Ubechel Oliver Tyrrell Paul Herbertson Rachel Calton Raphael Franzini Richard Williams Roland Purcell Roxy Rafter Simon Cronshaw Steve Coster Su Lim Tal Nathanel Tim Holtam Tom Dyckhoff Tom O'Donnell Tricia Austin Victoria Eyton Vincent Verbist Will Jones Yvonne Pinniger

You’re all bloody wonderful.

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