Ralph Caplan is a writer and lecturer. He is the author of several books on the design process, including By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons; Cracking the Whip: Essays on Design and its Side Effects; and The Design of Herman Miller.  He is also the author of Say Yes, a novel; and Making More Than Sense, a monograph on craft.

Former editor-in-chief of I.D. Magazine, Caplan has been a  columnist for I.D. and Print, and a contributor to a wide variety of both professional and general publications. He currently writes a column for VOICE, the online journal of the AIGA.

Caplan, who holds a BA from Earlham College and an MA from Indiana University, has taught at Penn State, Indiana University, Wabash College, and has been Writer in Residence at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

Ralph Caplan is the 2010 recipient of the  National Design Award in the category “Design Mind.” He is a Director Emeritus of The International Design Conference in Aspen and an honorary member of the Industrial Designers Society of America.

• Websites
• AIGIA Voice