IMAGE BY DESIGN

Here, top corporate-image man Chajet, with the largely invisible aid of Shachtman (Decade of Shocks, 1983, etc.), tells a little about his professional activities. Chajet's company, Lippincott and Margulies, of which he's chairman and CEOtitles he seems to like a lothas certainly fashioned the very look of America through corporate iconography. Chrysler, AT&T, Coca-Cola, and a host of others, including venerable Betty Crocker, have all had face-lifts through the slick ministrations of Chajet's image consultants. Included in his protocol of corporate display: stationery and street signs, logo and color scheme, public-relations strategy and the proper spin on a corporate disaster. He faults Exxon, not for the noxious spill or indifferent cleanup, but for ``cost cutting in regard to public affairs.'' He apparently believes that the facade determines what goes on inside the corporate edifice; he's certainly convinced that the facade will determine the price of the whole structure. Why Classic Coke had to step in for New Coke, what really happened to Allegis, how the Infiniti auto campaign evolved, and similar parables are offered. Successes are heralded; debacles are the result of pigheaded chief execs or the project of someone else. It's all very high-flown. By proper attention to image, smart corporations ``will have little to fear of what tomorrow holds,'' for ``by controlling their images through conscious design, they will be in the best position to take advantage of the future.'' And consumers. A mildly interesting, indifferently written primer on image usagea book that's finally not much more than a hard-sell promotional brochure for Chajet's corporate decorating firm. (Sixteen-page four-color insertnot seen.)