Based on the perspective of academic history, this book is a theoretical and comprehensive analysis on the 100 years' academic history of the research on design since 1918. The target of "design research" focused by the book includes advertisement, visual arts, graphic design, national image design, covering a broad range of areas like cartoon, art film, photography, visual arts research and creative industries.

Zhu Shuai, doctoral supervisor, director of the Research Institute of Contemporary Advertising of Peking University. Since 2003, he has taught successively at the School of Design of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Institute of Fine Arts of the Chinese Academy of Art and the School of Journalism and Communication of Peking University.