Book List of the Week

The Book List of the Week highlights the list of books provided by invited designers (including architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, landscape architects, product designers, urban designers, and other design professionals) who have chosen books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.
189 blog entries
Book List of the Week
By Stephanie Salomon June 30, 2020

Milton Glaser (1925–June 26, 2020) “made graphic design look alive, vibrant, and human,” writes Rudy VanderLans. The Emigre Fonts cofounder is one of several designers who count the classic Milton GlaserGraphic Design, first published in 1973 and the most popular compilation of Glaser’s work, among the books that have inspired their careers. 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 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 Stephanie Salomon October 11, 2011

Graphic designer Maira Kalman: M&Co (New York)
book list
Maira Kalman—graphic designer, illustrator, author of more than a dozen books for adults and children, and dedicated reader—sent us a book list that she introduces with, “Walk to a garden. Take a book with you, maybe a cup of coffee or tea. Just sit under a tree and read. That is the only answer to everything.” So Designers & Books decided to ask her not about “everything” but about a few things: books (on her book list and off), reading, and writing. 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 July 11, 2019

This week we honor the life and work of Philip Freelon (1953–2019), chief architect of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., by re-publishing the list of books that inspired him. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter September 21, 2018

Robert Venturi (1925–September 18, 2018), along with his partner and wife, Denise Scott Brown, was the original inspiration behind the founding of Designers and Books. Venturi and Scott Brown’s long list of the books that inspired them was one of the first we published, and it is our profound honor to feature it again. 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 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 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...