The Shape of Design began as a talk by Frank Chimero at the Build Conference, November 2010. Encouraged by the lecture’s response, Frank began to expand some of its themes into a book, eventually leading to a Kickstarter campaign to self-publish the work. The fundraising project launched in February 2011 and met its fundraising goal on the first day. It eventually reached four times its funding goal, making The Shape of Design one of the earliest successes from the design community on the Kickstarter platform. Since then, the book has found its way into design classrooms around the world as foundational reading, and grown its audience to include chefs, woodworkers, writers, and other creative practitioners.