Designers & Books Blog

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Book List of the Week

A Journey Into the Human Mind Like No Other: Harry Pearce’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 19, 2011

Graphic designer Harry Pearce: Pentagram (London)
book list

Describing the talk that he’s frequently asked to deliver—which he does from one corner of the earth to the other: in the U.K., Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the U.S.—Harry Pearce says: “It’s about being a Pentagram partner , an eternal optimist, a  failed vegetarian , a human rights activist, a  dream diary keeper , an occasional nudist , a graphic designer , and an accidentalist.” More...

Book List of the Week

Designers as Poets First: Books Every Product Designer Should Read—Alberto Alessi

By Steve Kroeter July 12, 2011

Product design executive Alberto Alessi: Alessi S.p.A. (Crusinallo, Italy)
book list
Alberto Alessi belongs to the third generation of one of the world’s great family dynasties in design. For over 40 years he has been at the center of managing the business and strategic affairs of Alessi S.p.A.—known for bringing innovative design to housewares—as well as coordinating the company’s product development relationships with notable architects and designers from around the world. He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and about his life, which has had design at its center. More...

Book List of the Week

The Nuances of How I Feel: Christian Lacroix’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 5, 2011

Fashion designer Christian Lacroix (Paris)
book list

Like his acclaimed couture designs, the life and career of Christian Lacroix can be described as sumptuously adventurous, explosively colorful, grandly visionary, and endlessly inventive. “I never loved the world around me as it was,” he says, reminiscing about his childhood in a recent interview with The Guardian (London). “I re-designed it all in my own style.” More...

Book List of the Week

Pictures Are More Direct: Chip Kidd’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 28, 2011

Graphic designer Chip Kidd: Alfred A. Knopf (New York)
book list
As a book jacket designer turned novelist, Chip Kidd is keenly attuned to the power of both the visual and the verbal. In an interview with Véronique Vienne for Designers & Books, he talks about the interplay of images, words, and ideas within the framework of his second novel, The Learners (2008), whose main character is a graphic designer working in advertising during the 1950s. In addition to his novels, Kidd, an art director at Alfred A. Knopf, has authored a number of books on comic-strip art. More...

Architecture

Three Architects, Three Countries, Six Languages: The Book Lists of Mikko Heikkinen, Maya Lin, and Enrique Norten

By Steve Kroeter June 21, 2011

Architect Mikko Heikkinen: Heikkinen + Komonen (Helsinki) book list

Architect Maya Lin: May Lin Studio (New York) book list

Architect Enrique Norten: TEN Arquitectos (Mexico City and New York) book list

The work of architects Mikko Heikkinen, Maya Lin, and Enrique Norten is acclaimed not only in their home countries—Finland for Heikkinen, the U.S. for Lin, Mexico for Norten—but also far beyond the cities and nations where their practices originated. And it is in this wider arena that, despite their different cultural backgrounds, some connections among the three emerge. More...

Book List of the Week

Typomania: Erik Spiekermann’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 14, 2011

Graphic designer Erik Spiekermann: Edenspiekermann AG (Berlin)
book list
When we talk about the waning of print communication and the waxing of digital communication, one element of the dialogue that retains its importance on both sides of the conversation is typography. . . . Type designers who grew up on print but have successfully migrated to the digital world have had the opportunity to have an outsized impact on contemporary commerce and culture in general, as well as on design in particular. Thus it is fitting that the German Design Council recently awarded Germany’s highest design award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, to Erik Spiekermann. More...

Architecture

The Library as Paradise: Books Every Architect Should Read—Barry Bergdoll

By Steve Kroeter June 7, 2011

Architecture curator and architectural historian Barry Bergdoll: The Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University (New York)
book list
A lover of books and architecture would be hard-pressed to find three finer libraries than the Helen Kate Furness Free Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania; the Avery Library at Columbia University in New York; and the Cambridge University Library in England.

These, as it turns out, are the libraries that have been in Barry Bergdoll’s life—while growing up, while in college and graduate school, and while a Kellett Fellow abroad. In these libraries he says, “I had the luck of spending many of my days.” In fact, Bergdoll at one point imagined that “being a librarian might be the best of all possible worlds.” More...

Book List of the Week

A Candid Search for Meaning: Pierre Bernard’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 31, 2011

Graphic designer Pierre Bernard: L’Atelier de Création Graphique (Paris)
book list
Who in the design community doesn’t believe that good design makes life better? Even the cynics among us must admit to at least occasionally hoping it’s true. French graphic designer Pierre Bernard’s take on this central of all design issues might be described as optimistic, yet also realistic. “Graphic design will not turn the world into a paradise, but it may contribute to a more humane world," he says. More...

Book List of the Week

Memoirs, Magic, and Murder Mysteries: Stephen Burrows’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 24, 2011

Fashion designer Stephen Burrows: Stephen Burrows (New York)
book list
In the special and celebrated world of fashion designers who are recognized with a star on New York’s Fashion Walk of Fame, Stephen Burrows is known for his adventurous application of color, his creative approach to structure, and the innovative and surprising ways he details his fabrics. The titles he includes on his book list for Designers & Books show a dramatic dedication to fashion and also someone with a keen and consuming interest in all of life’s mysteries and magic. More...

Book List of the Week

Take Out the Word “Nude” and Insert the Word “Car”: Chris Bangle’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 17, 2011

Car designer Chris Bangle: Chris Bangle Associates (Turin)
book list
As one of the world’s most high-profile and influential car designers of the last two decades (BMW, Mini Cooper, Rolls Royce)—who now runs his own design and design management studio—Chris Bangle is a master of the bold statement. He sent us his book list in “top ten” greatest-hits format. More...

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

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.

Order the book.

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.

Order the book.

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.

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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.

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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.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

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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