Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 7, 2014

“My book list is like album tracks that take me back to a moment in time,” says Fiona Raby, a partner (with Anthony Dunne) in the industrial design research studio Dunne & Raby. The partners’ work encompasses “speculative everything,” to use the title of Dunne and Raby’s latest book, which sees design as a tool for speculating on how things might be and to imagine possible futures. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 27, 2014

Recently named Global Head Design for Bloomberg LP, the Milan-born architect and industrial designer Emanuela Frattini Magnusson has been creating award-winning products for over 25 years: as founder of her own firm, EFM Design; for Tibor Kalman; and for many leading international manufacturers. More...

Book List of the Week
By Stephanie Salomon August 25, 2014

We salute graphic designer Deborah Sussman (1931–2014), who passed away last week, with a look at the books that inspired the colorful designer of the colorful and distinctive environmental graphics that became synonymous with Los Angeles and the California New Wave movement. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 22, 2014

We received a list of a dozen books that have inspired David Rockwell—the acclaimed architect of restaurants such as New York’s famed Nobu Fifty Seven and hotels like the W, and the set designer of Oscar ceremonies and award-winning Broadway productions including Hairspray and the currently running Kinky Boots. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter October 6, 2014

Architect Daniel Libeskind, one of our original book list contributors, was the keynote speaker Thursday, October 9, at the first-ever Dwell on Design New York, a “festival of modern design” organized by Dwell magazine October 9–11. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 21, 2014

A book list from Dan Formosa, who in 1981 helped form Smart Design, a group based on the idea that design is first and foremost about people. His work on OXO Good Grips kitchen tools became a symbol of products designed to work for every user. The interface he created for XM/Sirius established the standard for satellite radio in the U.S. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter July 22, 2019

Cesar Pelli (d. July 19, 2019) has been recognized for a lifetime of distinguished achievement in architecture. He designed some of the contemporary world’s most famous buildings, notably the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1997), the globe’s tallest buildings until 2004. Take a look at the books that inspired Pelli. 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...

Book List of the Week
By Stephanie Salomon July 19, 2016

The creator of the Morgan Library & Museum’s celebrated signage recommends 5 favorite books and gets a book dedicated to her own career spanning more than 60 years as one of the world’s more respected calligraphers. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 24, 2014

Anthony Dunne, Head of Design Interactions at London’s Royal College of Art and partner, with Fiona Raby in the design studio Dunne & Raby, offers a list of books that “celebrate parallel worlds, the imagination, and unreality in some way.” Dunne is a co-author of the recently published Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. More...