Cast iron cookware, kitchen appliances, modern art, antique furniture, cheap jeans, expensive shoes and of course the new iPhone - we are constantly choosing and seem to know exactly what we need. However, this choice - of course, made with impeccable taste and highly individual - is predetermined by the design of the purchase itself, by the implicit message that it conveys to us about itself, and to the whole world about its owner: things talk to us, and we talk to each other with a friend - and with yourself - with the help of things. A brief dictionary of this universal language is in the new book by the director of the London Design Museum, Dejan Sudzic.

Translation: Maxim Korobochkin