Designers & Books Blog

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856 blog entries

Book List of the Week

By Steve Kroeter November 11, 2013

“Everything I’m currently obsessed with can serve as inspiration for my work: films, exhibitions, music, travel, flea markets. And books!” fashion designer Ann Sui proclaims. ”I love doing the research, learning about something new.” More...

The Proust Questionnaire — Book Edition

Angus Hyland Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

By Angus Hyland December 12, 2013

Question: “If for some reason it turned out that you could save one and only one book from among those you own, which would it be?” Answer from graphic designer (Pentagram, London) Angus Hyland: “Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination or Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. Whichever was first at hand and whether I was in a Gothic panic or a more reflective mood.” More answers from Angus to The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition. More...

Book List of the Week

André Leon Talley’s Book List: Books Are a Man’s Best Friend

By Steve Kroeter September 10, 2013

Fashion editor, author, and icon André Leon Talley (1948–January 18, 2022) talked to Designers & Books in 2013 about the books that inspired him, and the books he wrote, including Little Black Dress (2013, Skira/Rizzoli). His most recent book was his memoir The Chiffon Trenches (2020, Ballantine Books). More...

Book List of the Week

An Intellectual Affiliation: Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List—Interview by Nicolai Ouroussoff

By Steve Kroeter March 27, 2012

Architecture school dean and architect Mohsen Mostafavi: Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA) Profile Book List
Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (New York)
(New York) Profile
The venerable Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) celebrates its 75th anniversary during the 2011–2012 academic year. Earlier in the year, critic and author Nicolai Ouroussoff had the opportunity to meet GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi in his office to talk about books. The specific books in question were those on a list that Dean Mostafavi compiled for Designers & Books—books that have particular resonance for him not only because of their intellectual content but also through their very personal connection to him. More...

Book List of the Week

An Architecture Critic Commits: Julie Iovine’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 4, 2013

Architecture critic Julie Iovine: The Wall Street Journal (New York)
Profile Book List
“I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, and also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?” is how Wall Street Journal architecture critic Julie Iovine begins her book list for Designers & Books. More...

Architecture

An Appetite for Nearly Everything I Encounter: Craig Hodgetts’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter February 28, 2012

Architect Craig Hodgetts: Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture (Los Angeles)
Profile Book List
Since the 1970s, when he collaborated with Robert Mangurian in the cutting-edge firm Studio Works, to his talked-about recent installation with partner Hsinming Fung for the “Pacific Standard Time” exhibition California Design, 1930–1965 (on view through June 3, 2012, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Craig Hodgetts has pursued a remarkable range of interests. In his architecture, writing, and teaching, he has drawn on automotive and lighting design, information technology, and theater and film, among many other areas. He has, as he says in the introduction to the list he created for Designers & Books, “an appetite for nearly everything I encounter.” More...

Architecture

Amazing Ideas into the Future: Winka Dubbeldam’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter August 2, 2011

Architect Winka Dubbeldam: Archi-Tectonics (New York)
book list
In an interview earlier this year, Winka Dubbeldam recalled that her parents enjoyed buying and building new homes—an obsession that resulted in her moving 15 times in the 17 years she lived with them. It isn’t really a surprise, then, that she ended up as an architect with a particular interest in progressive residential work. Her worldwide reputation now also extends to office tower, commercial, hospitality, and interior design work. More...

Architecture

Almanacs and Encyclopedias, Conjectures and Theoretical Arguments: Neil Denari’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 19, 2012

Architect Neil Denari: Neil M. Denari Architects (Los Angeles)
Profile Book List
Architect Neil Denari is “primarily a reader of nonfiction.” He tells Designers & Books, “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.” More...

Daily Features

All Booked Up: Five Extraordinary U. S. Bookstores

By Stela Razzaque, Superscript November 22, 2013

Bookstores can be magical places that transport us to a different time and place. In celebration of the written word, here are five of our favorite unconventional bookstores from across the country. More...

The Proust Questionnaire — Book Edition

Alice Rawsthorn Answers The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition

By Alice Rawsthorn November 26, 2013

Alice Rawsthorn’s favorite place to buy books (it’s in Cambridge), the best “book as object” she owns (it’s very small), and more answers to The Proust Questionnaire—Book Edition. 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.

Order the book.

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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