Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Book List of the Week
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...

Rare & Beautiful
By Peter Kraus June 25, 2019

Color has been a subject of fascination and importance for artists and designers since our earliest times and cultures. Over the centuries, numerous books have explored theories of color—how it used and perceived. The second installment in a collaboration between Designers & Books and Peter Kraus’s Ursus Books & Gallery in New York highlights three important books from the past devoted to color theory. More...

Rare & Beautiful
By Peter Kraus May 14, 2019

Peter Kraus, owner of Ursus Books & Gallery in New York, looks at two innovative graphic design publications from the past: Ladislav Sutnar’s Package Design: The Force of Visual Selling, issued in 1953, and F. T. Marinetti’s Les Mots en Liberté Futuristes, published in 1919, 100 years ago. More...

Book List of the Week
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
By Steve Kroeter September 25, 2012

Product designer Ronan Bouroullec: Atelier Bouroullec, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (Paris)
Profile     Book List
Partners for over a decade, Ronan Bouroullec together with his brother, Erwan, have created innovative designs for products ranging from furniture, lamps, tableware, and textiles to architectural projects, exhibition catalogues and, recently, an iPad application. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter February 7, 2012

Architect Cesar Pelli: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (New Haven, Connecticut)
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Recognized for a lifetime of distinguished achievement in architecture—he is the recipient of more than 200 awards and prizes for his contributions to the field—Cesar Pelli has designed some of the contemporary world’s most famous buildings. More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter March 21, 2013

Harvard University Press is 100 years old this year. The venerable publisher, which has issued renowned scholarly series such as the Loeb Classical Library and the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures as well as numerous Pulitzer Prize-winning titles, is marking the anniversary by introducing a new visual identity—one that represents a significant departure from the traditional graphic imagery associated with the Press’s past. For some insights into how this all came about, Designers & Books talked with the designer of the new logo, Sagi Haviv, partner at Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, and Harvard University Press’s Director of Design and Production, Tim Jones. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 24, 2012

Interior and product designer Alexa Hampton: Mark Hampton LLC (New York)
Profile   Book List
As head of the interiors firm founded by her legendary father, Mark Hampton, Alexa Hampton carries the lessons of her Brown University education (class of 1993) into her life as a highly sought-after interior designer and a lifelong student and reader. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter August 23, 2011

Architecture and design curator Zoë Ryan: Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago)
book list
When Zoë Ryan—as of this July, the John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design and Chair of the Department of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago—gave us her list of books for product designers, she emphasized that she found it hard to be limited by disciplines or categories and that her view of design was an expansive one. More...

Daily Features
November 21, 2022

For this holiday gift-giving season, here is just a sampling of the books published in 2022 written and illustrated by our contributing architects, designers, and design critics. From the delicate drawings of Maira Kalman to the luminous wood constructions of architect Shigeru Ban, we hope they will provide inspiration for you — and ideas for your gift list. More...