Daily Features

The Online Design Book Fair Launches Today

A new way to discover and buy books about design

By Steve Kroeter October 7, 2013

We are excited to be introducing the Designers & Books Online Book Fair. This new approach to discovering books combines the serendipity and spontaneity of browsing at an “offline“ fair or in a bookstore with the refined search, sort, and filter capabilities of the Internet. The combination is intended to provide a helpful, enjoyable, and well-designed way to discover books about design—some at a significant discount.

Last October in New York, we launched the Designers & Books Fair—a weekend-long celebration of design, books, authors, and design book publishing. While our choice of weekends turned out to be less than ideal—it was the weekend of Hurricane Sandy—we offered a well-received mix of author presentations in three auditoriums, books signings, an exhibition hall full of publishers selling both brand-new and backlist titles, and attendees from three continents.

Afterward, as we were reflecting on the Fair, we realized that it was probably the first time that publishers, book designers, authors, editors, rare and out of print dealers, and book buyers interested in the full spectrum of design disciplines had ever assembled at one event.

We thought that if the event had been a good idea for two days, it might be worth exploring the possibility of extending it. Eventually this evolved into the idea of an online fair—which we are launching today with nearly 400 books from 13 internationally distinguished publishers.

The focus of the online book fair is on architecture, fashion, graphic design, interior design, landscape design, product and industrial design, urban design—and all the related design fields: 14 in total.

With 62 filter options that can be sorted 8 different ways, the site has been designed to make the discovery of books both pleasurable and pinpoint effective. With ease you’ll be able to find broad categories of books, like architecture titles (148 books on the site)—and with equal ease you’ll also be able to “drill down” and find specific architecture books; for example books that have been tagged “North American” and “20th-century,” “priced between $50 and $75” (8 books on the site).

And if you want to take the opposite approach of pinpoint precision because you are in the mood for surprises—you can choose the “random browse” sort for any filtered set of books.

The publishers currently participating are:

AMMO Books
Applied Research + Design Books
DAAB
Gestalten
GOFF Books
Lars Müller Publishers
Laurence King Publishing
The MIT Press
ORO Editions
Paintbox Press
Pointed Leaf Press
Prestel Publishing
Yale University Press

Purchases are made directly from each publisher, with different publishers offering different discounts—in some cases up to 50% off:

AMMO BOOKS: 50% off
Applied Research + Design: 50% off
DAAB: 30% off
Goff Books: 50% off
The MIT Press: 30% off
ORO Editions: 50% off

We hope you’ll take a moment to look over what we’ve put together—and we hope that you’ll enjoy what you find there. Whether you’re looking for a classic backlist book or a new title being released next month, we’re pretty sure you’ll find what you are looking for—or perhaps something that you didn’t know you were looking for. Our goal is to continually expand the offerings and features of the Fair, so if you have comments or questions to pass along, we will be eager to hear from you.

Follow the online design book fair by using the hashtag #DBFair and @designersbooks on Twitter, find us on Facebook, and subscribe to our updates.

10 Notable Design Books of 2013: October Reviews

12 Notable Design Books of 2013: September Reviews

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