Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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2000 books

For Marx Louis Althusser On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Forget All the Rules You Ever Learned About Graphic Design, Including the Ones in This Book Bob Gill On Jules Fisher’s Book List On list of Books by Bob Gill Add to My Reading List	Form & Decoration: Innovation in the Decorative Arts, 1470–1870 Peter Thornton On Susan Weber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Form of the Book Jan Tschichold On Massimo Pitis’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Foucault’s Pendulum Umberto Eco On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List On Jens Holm’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Founding Fish John McPhee On Alexander Cooper’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Fountainhead Ayn Rand On Michael Bierut’s Book List On Adam Tihany’s Book List On Deborah Sussman’s Book List On Chip Kidd’s Book List On Stanley Tigerman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Four Books on Architecture Andrea Palladio On Michael Graves’s Book List On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The Four Elements Roz Chast On Ellen Lupton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Four Quartets T. S. Eliot On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List On Ralph Rucci’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Fragments d’un discours amoureux (A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments) Roland Barthes On Pierre Bernard’s Book List On Christian Lacroix’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frank Lloyd Wright Ada Louise Huxtable On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frank Lloyd Wright Meryle Secrest On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography Frank Lloyd Wright On Richard Meier’s Book List On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, Vol. 1, 1894–1930 Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed. On Victoria Meyers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley On Michael Sorkin’s Book List On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Frederick the Great Nancy Mitford On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Freewheelin’ Time Suze Rotolo On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Frei Otto: Complete Works Winfried Nerdinger On Winka Dubbeldam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The French Crown Jewels Bernard Morel On Marion Fasel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	French Jewelry of the Nineteenth Century Henri Vever On Marion Fasel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	French Modern Louise Fili On list of Books by Steven Heller On list of Books by Louise Fili Add to My Reading List	Friedrich Kiesler: Architekt, Maler, Bildhauer, 1890–1965 Dieter Bogner, ed. On Jürgen Mayer H.’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Fritz Kahn: Man Machine Uta and Thilo von Debschitz On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List
From Atoms to Patterns Lesley Jackson On Coralie Bickford-Smith’s Book List Add to My Reading List	From Bauhaus to Our House Tom Wolfe On Peter Pennoyer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	From Cave Painting to Comic Strip Lancelot Hogben On Tom Geismar’s Book List Add to My Reading List	From Slavery to Freedom John Hope Franklin On Philip Freelon’s Book List Add to My Reading List	From the Ground Up Lewis Mumford On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor Jerry Della Femina On Michael Bierut’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Front Runner Patricia Nell Warren On Debbie Millman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Full House Stephen Jay Gould On Jeanne Gang’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The Functional Tradition in Early Industrial Buildings J. M. Richards On Norman Foster’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Fundamentals Rem Koolhaas On Carlo Ratti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Furniture from British India and Ceylon Amin Jaffer On David Easton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Furniture of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld Daniele Baroni On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Furniture of Poul Kjaerholm Michael Sheridan et al. On Ronan Bouroullec’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Füssli, the Wild Swiss (Fuseli, the Wild Swiss) Christoph Becker, ed. On Alexander Haldemann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Future of Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright On Richard Meier’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Future of Life Edward O. Wilson On Ken Carbone’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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.

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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.

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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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