About
A reference for designers who care about the craft
The Design Encyclopedia is a curated, interconnected reference for industrial and transportation design — built with the care of a well-made object, for designers who treat their vocabulary with the same rigor as their work.
The idea
Why this exists
Designers work with a vast vocabulary that spans materials, methods, history, and theory. But the language of design is scattered across books, blogs, PDFs, and personal notes. The Design Encyclopedia brings it together into a single, interconnected reference — one that respects both the depth of the field and the time of the working designer.
Each entry is written as a reference work, not as an article. Every term has a clear definition, structured metadata, related entries, and the context a designer needs to actually use it.
What you'll find
Six entry types
Designers
Profiles of influential designers and the work that defined them.
Methods
Frameworks, processes, and principles that shape how designers think.
Materials
The physical substances of design — properties, uses, and behavior.
Products
Case studies of iconic designed objects and their impact.
Movements
Schools, movements, and periods that reshaped the discipline.
Concepts
Ideas, terms, and theories that underpin design thinking.
Currently focused on industrial and transportation design. Graphic design, architecture, and beyond are on the roadmap.
Principles
How it's made
Interconnected
Every entry links to related concepts. The graph view is a map of how the field actually connects, not just an alphabetical index.
Reliable
Researched, cited, and reviewed. Definitions follow the rigor of a reference work, not the informality of a blog post.
Readable
Designed for designers. Typography, spacing, and structure matter as much as the words themselves.
Living
Continuously improved and expanded. If something is wrong or missing, it gets fixed — by design.
The creator
Built by a designer, for designers
Mahan Rasouli
Industrial Designer
The Design Encyclopedia is created and maintained by Mahan Rasouli. The goal is a reference that a working designer would actually keep open in a browser tab — accurate, beautiful, and fast.
mahanrasouli.comThis is a work in progress
Every encyclopedia starts somewhere. If you spot an error, have a suggestion, or want to contribute an entry, I'd love to hear from you.