Designers & Books Blog

 

857 blog entries
Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview
October 31, 2014

We spent October celebrating architecture with book lists from architects Daniel Libeskind, Ian Ritchie, and Carlo Ratti, and an in-depth interview with Ian Ritchie by critic Witold Rybczynski. This coming month we’re especially excited to bring you our Online Book Fair’s first 80% Off Sale, featuring selected architecture and design books from 8 different publishers at 80 percent off their original prices. This is a limited-time offer for two weeks only, starting November 1. More...

Design Books to Win
October 29, 2014

In partnership with Knoll, we’re offering you the chance to win three newly published books featuring the work of three designers who have collaborated with the noted design company. Through November 11, 11:59 PM (EST), enter to win a copy of Abbott Miller: Design and Content (Princeton Architectural Press); the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale catalogue, Fundamentals (Marsilio, distributed by Rizzoli) by Rem Koolhaas, the Biennale’s curator; and Lella and Massimo Vignelli: Two Lives, One Vision (RIT Press). Five winners will each receive a copy of all three books. More...

Themed Book Lists
October 28, 2014

Inspired by our post earlier this month on the Books That Inspire Five Designers from Finland and Scandinavia, here are 25 books on Scandinavian design from our contributors. More...

By Ellen Lupton October 27, 2014

Typography manuals abound, but few are a pleasure to read, handle, and behold. Bringhurst’s book is one of the best guides ever devised on the principles and practices of typography.

Book List of the Week
October 27, 2014

This year’s DesignThinkers conference, Canada’s largest conference for visual communicators, hosted by the Canadian Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) conference on November 6 and 7, 2014, features five graphic designers who have sent us book lists: Ellen Lupton, Abbott Miller, Debbie Millman, Paula Scher, and Erik Spiekermann. More...

Themed Book Lists
October 23, 2014

Four books from our contributors on the Vienna-trained architect and architectural theorist and writer Adolf Loos (1870–1933). More...

Design Books to Win
October 22, 2014

We’re giving away books on the lives and work of two major early modernist designers: pioneering architect Adolf Loos (1870–1933) and Art Deco furniture and interiors designer Paul T. Frankl (1886–1958).  Five winners will each receive a copy of Adolf Loos: A Private Portrait, by Claire Beck Loos, and Paul T. Frankl: Autobiography, published by Doppelhouse Press. Enter to win (you need a U.S. postal address) through Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 11:59 PM (EST). More...

Themed Book Lists
October 21, 2014

Fifteen books on Art Deco—the predominately European and American decorative arts style of the 1920s and ’30s that took its name from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter October 20, 2014

As founder and director of MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory, Carlo Ratti investigates how digital technologies are changing urban living. Trained as an architect (he runs an architecture firm in Turin, Italy) and engineer, he also has several patents to his name. His Digital Water Pavilion, exhibited at the 2008 World Expo in Barcelona, was hailed by Time magazine as one of the Best Inventions of the Year. More...

By Carlo Ratti October 20, 2014

A critical look at how our cities are becoming computers “en plein air”—the benefits and the risks.