Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: July 25
July 25, 2014With summer in full swing, this month we featured a talk with Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute curator Harold Koda about the Met’s current exhibition and accompanying catalogue on fashion designer Charles James. We’ll be giving away copies of the catalogue in our next installment of “Design Books to Win,” starting July 29, following our very popular recent giveaway with Phaidon Press of the iBooks edition of Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible.
We also published Witold Rybczynski’s review of Being: An Architect by Ian Ritchie and brought you special summer-themed lists of books on landscape design, bicycle design, and more.
Our Online Book Fair is expanding to include new art and photography as well as design books and in July we welcomed our first rare book dealer to the Fair.
Coming events to note:
August 5: Book launch for two new books by graphic designer and Designers & Books contributor Peter Mendelsund at The powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, NY. Details.
November 6: Register for SEGD’s Xlab 2014 in New York. Envision the future of immersive experiences. Details:
https://segd.org/2014xlab
Weekly Wrap-Up

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s Curator in Charge, Harold Koda, talks about the Met’s current exhibition Charles James: Beyond Fashion (on view through August 10) and the accompanying catalogue. Fashion designer Charles James (1906–1978) is often considered to be America’s first couturier—a sculptor of fabric who defined 1940s and 1950s glamour. Enter our drawing to win a copy of the catalogue, through August 4.
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Most popularly known for his Geodesic Dome, visionary, inventor, environmentalist, and prolific author R. Buckminster—“Bucky”— Fuller (1895–1983) was born in July. Here are 10 books by or featuring Fuller that have been chosen by our contributing designers, publishers, and booksellers.
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Traveling to hotels and restaurants are among summer’s (or any season’s) pleasures. Here are five major designers of notable hotel and restaurant spaces worldwide who list the books that have been influential for them. The designers include Jeffrey Beers, Ed Ng, Adam Tihany, and George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg.
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Summer makes us think of gardens and green spaces. Here are 25 books on gardens and landscape from our contributing designers and publishers—featuring gardens from Newport estates to Manhattan rooftops, and from Brazil to ancient Babylon.
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France celebrates its national holiday today. In honor of Bastille Day, here are six French designers and the books that have inspired them. The designers include graphic designer Pierre Bernard, fashion designer Christian Lacroix, and product designers Ronan Bouroullec, Matali Crasset, Jean-Marie Massaud, and Inga Sempé.
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The world’s most famous annual bicycle race, the Tour de France, ended on July 27, 2014. In honor, we bring you our list of books on bicycles and bicycle design, now updated with new titles.
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The books that have left their mark on four notable names in jewelry design are spotlighted this week. Featured are designers Lisa Jenks, Temple St. Clair, and Gijs Bakker, and critic and author In Style’s Marion Fasel, who sent us a list of “Books Every Jewelry Designer Should Read.”
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Our Online Book Fair is growing—fast. To our over 500 titles, we’re continually adding new books on architecture, design, art, and photography for adults and children—many at specially discounted prices—and new publishers, too. We also welcome our first in a lineup of rare and out of print book dealers, offering you a showcase of vintage titles as well current and forthcoming books.
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For a collaboration we are participating in with The Art Directors Club, Designers & Books invites you to share the story of how you navigated your creative career path—including the books that have inspired you. Your story and quotes will be posted on ADC’s blog and promoted on its social channels. The Art Directors Club (ADC) has a social community of more than 220,000 creative professionals in every stage of career development, and from all over the world.
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Critic Witold Rybczynski reviews vanguard British architect Ian Ritchie’s newest book—a combination of musings, writings, and photographs of the buildings that have marked Ritchie’s varied career.
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BMW’s Head of Cultural Engagement, Thomas Girst, talks about the company’s almost 40-year tradition of producing unique cars designed by artists—now collected into a book. BMW Art Cars, edited by Girst and published by Hatje Cantz, showcases the 17 artists invited to re-envision the look of some of the world’s most famous racecars.

Even if you can’t make it to the exhibition currently on view at the Met’s Costume Institute through August 10, you can still experience the glamorous designs and fascinating career of Charles James (1906–78), often considered to be America’s first couturier, through the the acclaimed catalogue of the show.
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Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
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By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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