Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Daily Features
By Jennifer Krichels, Superscript September 6, 2013

LEGO begins another chapter in the long and fabled history between architects and children’s building toys. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 19, 2013

Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund: Alfred A. Knopf Books, Pantheon Books, Vertical Press (New York)
Profile     Book List
“How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books,” says Peter Mendelsund, the book designer who created 11 of the winning book covers for the “50 Books/50 Covers” competition of 2011 and whose covers for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy have been described by the Wall Street Journal as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter October 4, 2011

Architect Sou Fujimoto: Sou Fujimoto Architects (Tokyo)
book list
Designers & Books is likely to take immediate notice of architects who have particular ties to books—for example, those who have designed libraries, as Sou Fujimoto has. About the Musashino Art University Museum and Library (Tokyo), designed by Fujimoto and completed in 2010, Architectural Record remarked: “Sou Fujimoto’s library champions books—an especially noble achievement at a time when the printed word is facing an uncertain future.” The architect himself is quoted in that article as saying: “Enjoying, concentrating, and relaxing in a library surrounded by books is a special experience.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 21, 2013

Architect, interior and product/industrial designer Matteo Thun: Matteo Thun & Partners (Milan)
Profile     Book List
Matteo Thun needed something that functions like “a phone book” * to show the varied work for which he has become known over the course of his career. That work includes co-founding (with Ettore Sottsass) Memphis—the industrial design collective that defined Italian design in the 1970s and 1980s—and also the hotels, private residences, housewares, and lighting designed by his own firm, Matteo Thun & Partners. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 26, 2012

Interior, product, graphic, and fashion designer Todd Oldham: Todd Oldham Studio, Inc. (New York)
Profile    Book List
Design editor and writer Wendy Goodman: New York magazine (New York)
Profile    Video
Indefatigable designer, writer, and reader Todd Oldham talks to design editor Wendy Goodman of New York magazine in an interview for Designers & Books—about what (and how) he reads and writes. Authors Dorothy Parker and Amy and David Sedaris, artists Cindy Sherman and Tim Hawkinson, film director Sidney Lumet, and designers Roberto Burle Marx, Tony Duquette, Charley Harper, and Alexander Girard are all part of the mix.

 

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Daily Features
By Amanda Kolson Hurley, Superscript September 17, 2013

In popular culture the Loeb Classical Library has become a visual shorthand for higher learning (and high social status), but how did they come to look like they do? More...

Daily Features
By Simone Withers Swan May 11, 2021

In conjunction with our celebration of Louis Kahn’s 120th birthday this year, we are honored to bring you the following very special recollections of Simone Swan, inaugural executive director of the Menil Foundation in Houston, where she helped coordinate the studies undertaken by Louis I. Kahn for a new structure to house the Menil Collection. She was also Kahn’s last residential client. More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter November 6, 2013

Architect and interior designer William T. Georgis talks about the first book that influenced him, collaboration with artists, what he thinks about fashion, and the monograph of his work published this summer aptly titled Make It Fabulous (The Monacelli Press). More...

Daily Features
By Amanda Kolson Hurley, Superscript January 14, 2014

The U.S. Mint recently released a new design for the $100 bill. What’s the design verdict? More...

Daily Features
By Jennifer Krichels, Superscript August 23, 2013

Campuses around the world are introducing designs that encourage a more well-rounded academic environment. More...