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 Steve Kroeter July 12, 2011

Product design executive Alberto Alessi: Alessi S.p.A. (Crusinallo, Italy)
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Alberto Alessi belongs to the third generation of one of the world’s great family dynasties in design. For over 40 years he has been at the center of managing the business and strategic affairs of Alessi S.p.A.—known for bringing innovative design to housewares—as well as coordinating the company’s product development relationships with notable architects and designers from around the world.  He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and about his life, which has had design at its center.  More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter July 5, 2011

Fashion designer Christian Lacroix (Paris)
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Like his acclaimed couture designs, the life and career of Christian Lacroix can be described as sumptuously adventurous, explosively colorful, grandly visionary, and endlessly inventive. “I never loved the world around me as it was,” he says, reminiscing about his childhood in a recent interview with The Guardian (London). “I re-designed it all in my own style.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 28, 2011

Graphic designer Chip Kidd: Alfred A. Knopf  (New York) 
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As a book jacket designer turned novelist, Chip Kidd is keenly attuned to the power of both the visual and the verbal. In an interview with Véronique Vienne for Designers & Books, he talks about the interplay of images, words, and ideas within the framework of his second novel, The Learners (2008), whose main character is a graphic designer working in advertising during the 1950s. In addition to his novels, Kidd, an art director at Alfred A. Knopf, has authored a number of books on comic-strip art.  More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter June 21, 2011

Architect Mikko Heikkinen: Heikkinen + Komonen (Helsinki) book list

Architect Maya Lin: May Lin Studio (New York) book list

Architect Enrique Norten: TEN Arquitectos (Mexico City and New York) book list

The work of architects Mikko Heikkinen, Maya Lin, and Enrique Norten is acclaimed not only in their home countries—Finland for Heikkinen, the U.S. for Lin, Mexico for Norten—but also far beyond the cities and nations where their practices originated. And it is in this wider arena that, despite their different cultural backgrounds, some connections among the three emerge. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 14, 2011

Graphic designer Erik Spiekermann: Edenspiekermann AG (Berlin)
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When we talk about the waning of print communication and the waxing of digital communication, one element of the dialogue that retains its importance on both sides of the conversation is typography. . . . Type designers who grew up on print but have successfully migrated to the digital world have had the opportunity to have an outsized impact on contemporary commerce and culture in general, as well as on design in particular. Thus it is fitting that the German Design Council recently awarded Germany’s highest design award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, to Erik Spiekermann. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter June 7, 2011

Architecture curator and architectural historian Barry Bergdoll: The Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University (New York)
book list
A lover of books and architecture would be hard-pressed to find three finer libraries than the Helen Kate Furness Free Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania; the Avery Library at Columbia University in New York; and the Cambridge University Library in England.

These, as it turns out, are the libraries that have been in Barry Bergdoll’s life—while growing up, while in college and graduate school, and while a Kellett Fellow abroad. In these libraries he says, “I had the luck of spending many of my days.” In fact, Bergdoll at one point imagined that “being a librarian might be the best of all possible worlds.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 31, 2011

Graphic designer Pierre Bernard: L’Atelier de Création Graphique (Paris)
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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...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 24, 2011

Fashion designer Stephen Burrows: Stephen Burrows (New York)
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In the special and celebrated world of fashion designers who are recognized with a star on New York’s Fashion Walk of Fame, Stephen Burrows is known for his adventurous application of color, his creative approach to structure, and the innovative and surprising ways he details his fabrics. The titles he includes on his book list for Designers & Books show a dramatic dedication to fashion and also someone with a keen and consuming interest in all of life’s mysteries and magic. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 17, 2011

Car designer Chris Bangle: Chris Bangle Associates (Turin)
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As one of the world’s most high-profile and influential car designers of the last two decades (BMW, Mini Cooper, Rolls Royce)—who now runs his own design and design management studio—Chris Bangle is a master of the bold statement. He sent us his book list in “top ten” greatest-hits format. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 10, 2011

Graphic design critic Rick Poynor: Design Observer (London)
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Rick Poynor is a writer and critic specializing in design, media, and visual culture—and also founding editor of Eye and a co-founder of Design Observer. He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and also about books and graphic design in general. More...