Travel anywhere, make sense of the world, and make a difference. 
The First Edition sold out in the first week.

Now available in Second Edition and the more portable Field Edition. See buying options.


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Making sense of the world (Monocle 24)
On Margins on book design (Craig Mod)

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"Yes, but is it any good?"—a practitioner's review

"This brilliantly illustrated tome is an excellent way to ensure you make the most of your interactions with people and nature, both at home and abroad, such that you never waste an opportunity to enrich your life." Uncrate

"I suspect it doubles as a self-help book of sorts about how to function socially as a human being in the non-American world" Jason Kottke, in Wired



About The Handbook

 

The comprehensive how-to, why-to guide to running international field research projects. The Handbook is for anyone that needs to understand users, customers, people across markets, geographies and cultures.

The Handbook reveals how to:

  • Build and lead trusted multicultural teams, anywhere in the world.

  • Run a field study from pitch to deliverable, initial hypothesis to becoming organisational wisdom.

  • Learn how to read contexts, identify patterns of behaviour, decode cultures, and generate insights that inform and inspire product, brand, strategy, policy, and communications.

  • Pinpoint the difference between local, regional, and globally relevant solutions.

  • Challenge minds, flutter hearts, and make a difference.

Read Table Of Contents.


About the author

Jan is a designer, writer, photographer, and award-winning researcher.

He is the founder of Studio D Radiodurans, a research, design, and strategy consultancy specialising in clients with a global outlook. Over the course of his career, he has advised numerous Fortune 500 companies, governments, and global organisations. His pioneering research has influenced the design of products and services bought and used by hundreds of millions of people.

His first book Hidden in Plain Sight, was published by Harper Collins in English, with Japanese, Chinese and Russian editions, and became a best seller in South Korea of all places. The Handbook is his third authored book.

Jan has lectured at Stanford, MIT, Birkbeck, Tokyo University, National Institute of Design, Tehran University and many of the world’s preeminent educational establishments (and a few high schools too). His pioneering research and designs are widely covered in the media, including the New York Times, The Economist, Die Zeit, Nikkei, The Telegraph and The Guardian. He is a frequent speaker at events ranging from governmental and C-level through to TED and WEF. 

Follow Jan on instagram/janchip and on twitter/janchip.

Read Studio D Field Notes.

About the illustrator

Lee is a technical illustrator based out of Narbeth Wales. He spent a year illustrating the Handbook, and Sustainable Data. 

Follow Lee on Instagram/leejohnphillips.

Praise for the Handbook

“The canonical classic reference for cross-cultural research. The crisp design and typography shine in timeless elegance.”

Kevin Kelly, Author, The Inevitable, What Technology Wants

“This remarkable book is so detailed, well-organized and intellectually exotic that I could easily make Jan Chipchase the action hero of a science fiction novel.”

Bruce Sterling, Sci-fi Author, Futurist

"TFSH is a book about respecting the world and engendering curiosity. A curiosity to go deeper into cultures, cities, communities. And to do so respectfully, with an awareness of how and why the machinery of society works as it does. TFSH teaches you how to be a global citizen of the highest order." 

Craig Mod, Designer, Author

"Whether you are a novice or experienced, in-house or consulting, Jan provides an inspiring and actionable framework to figure out what users need and how this translates to design. For anyone designing for an international audience."

Raphael Grignani, Design @ Facebook

"I had the pleasure of working with Jan for several years at frog. He has an intense curiosity, a love of people and culture, and a thirst for knowledge everywhere he goes. He has translated all of that into a replicable framework in The Field Study Handbook. His unique style has allowed him to transcend borders. A skill truly needed today.”

Doreen Lorenzo Exec Director, Center for Integrated Design, University of Texas

"Jan goes to the places we are too-often afraid to visit, talks to the people we don’t always see, and asks the kind of questions that most of us had long forgot to ask."

Mark Rolston, Argo Design, ex-Chief Creative Officer, frog

"Through Jan's example, collaboration and support, I've honed my approaches, tightened up my ability to call my own bullshit, and learned how to find flow in the hustle. The work is hard, and not everyone is cut out for it; but fieldwork with him makes long days feel like days spent the way they ought to be, and the act of tackling tough challenges feel instantly corollary to personal and professional growth. I was leading teams and fieldwork before working with Jan; Now I do so differently." —Lauren Serota, Designer

"When I think of Jan's work (and that of the teams he has led) I think of a very specific form of fearlessness. That doesn't ignore risk (far from it) but minimises missed opportunity or insight by being rigorously prepared and attuned to context. I also think of a fearlessness of communication - an emphasis on the raw and the human - in order to build a platform for understanding and invention across cultures."

Matt Jones, design director, Google research and machine intelligence.


Help us improve the next edition, by reporting errors and omissions in the erratum.


Includes 51 technical illustrations from Lee John Phillips.

Field Study Training

Studio D offers 3-day intensive training programmes on international field methods, hosted by the author. To be notified of the next course, drop your email here


Sample Deliverables

Most of our projects are confidential, but here are sample deliverables from non-profit projects. If you only read one, try Paddy to Plate.


The Field Study Handbook is kindly supported by the following patrons.