The first image in this book is the door to Mauk Design's office in San Francisco. It's a door an more than a door. The material is unusual, the hingeis displaced. But it is not showy, nor pretentious, nor done for effect alone. It is, simply, designed, a problem solved without fuss but with feeling. In the rest of his work for clients such as PlayStation, VW and Intel, Mitchell Mauk often uses form in an abstract way, but always to contruct an emotional or engaging narrative: indirect, controlled, effective. Design as essence and essential.