This is an informative pocket guide to Auckland Museum's New Zealand Design and Decorative Arts collection, featuring samples of works now on display in the Encounter gallery. Frocks, furniture, teapots, jewellery - a wonderful array of objects showcasing the work of NZ designers, ceramicists, dress designers, object makers and manufacturers. Readers will recognise names such as El-Jay, Peter Stichbury, James Chapman-Taylor, Milton, Temuka and Crown Lynn potteries, Warwick Freeman, Sam Ireland and Areta Wilkinson. The guide covers the period from the 1840s to contemporary design in 2005, and objects are sourced from throughout the country. The introduction by curator Louis Le Vaillant sets out the history of the decorative arts in NZ, and each object has a description of who the designer or maker was, where the object is from, what it's made of, and how it fits into the story of design in New Zealand.