Neil Denari’s Book List
I am primarily a reader of nonfiction, and reports, almanacs, and encyclopedias have always interested me as they dryly lay out apparently unbiased information. I am also interested in the opposite: spurious conjectures, crackpot theories, conspiracies, and theoretical arguments. Reports are not, however, immune to jargon and subtle coercion, and spurious conjectures can be very clear and persuasive. When books of any kind collapse this distinction, that’s where I find the most pleasure.
all genres
- filter by:
- all genres (0)
Through this book I was introduced to Ballard in 1983 by a friend after designing a 200-foot tall house located on a freeway median strip. Ballardian and didn’t know it.
Otl Aicher’s graphic design, Frei Otto’s stadia, the Israeli Hostage Crisis, and the hopes and dreams of a proto-democratic Germany all compiled, classified, and described in this three-volume report on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
An incredibly elegant and persuasive yet undogmatic collection of arguments.
I lived a couple of blocks from Cooper Union when this came out. Hejduk loomed large over the East Village (and beyond).
This is the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of cinema. (The Tractatus refers to Wittgenstein’s text of the same title—another book that has been influential for me but did not make my uppermost list.) If there is one book I always travel with, this is it.
Published in 1907, this is still the most useful book on visual perception.
You’ve got to love the only rock critic whose favorite record was Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music.
Design and politics colliding at a moment when everything else did too. Baudrillard’s Marxist teeth were quite sharp. I like the mood the James Rosenquist piece on this cover puts me in when I read the book.
The best roman à clef ever written, and the first serious book I read as a kid.
Bruce Mau’s design startled me and so did Paul Virilio’s text “The Overexposed City.”
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.
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.
.png)
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.
.png)
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
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.
Popular NowWeekMonth
- The Book We Need Now: New from Stefan Sagmeister
- Quote of the Day: Witold Rybczynski & Paradise Planned
- Summer Reading for Design Lovers: The Story of Architecture
- One Book and Why: Design School Dean Frederick Steiner Recommends . . .
- One Book and Why: Graphic Designer Stefan Sagmeister Recommends . . .
- Book List of the Week: Milton Glaser
- Imagining Information: Symbols, Isotype, and Book Design
- “The Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn” To Be Reissued in a New Facsimile Edition
- Do We Need a Completely New Approach to Marketing Books?
- Question Everything: A Conversation with OK-RM’s Rory McGrath
Recent Articles
