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 May 14, 2013

Textile design firm executive Michael Maharam: Maharam (New York)
Profile     Book List
As CEO of his family’s over 110-year-old textile firm, Michael Maharam has introduced the work of modern and contemporary graphic, fashion, and industrial designers to the company’s commercial fabric lines. Hella Jongerius, Maira Kalman, Abbott Miller, and Paul Smith, among many others, have all designed for Maharam, which has become known for the progressive design and engineering of its textiles for architects and interior designers. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 30, 2013

Jewelry and watch design editor Marion Fasel: InStyle (New York)
Profile     Book List
“To be a jewelry designer is a calling,” says Marion Fasel, InStyle’s jewelry editor since 1996, the year she launched the magazine’s award-winning coverage of the field. “You have to actively seek an education,” Fasel continues, “and books are one of the best resources.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 23, 2013

Architect Craig Dykers: Snøhetta (New York and Oslo)
Profile     Book List
“What gets me up in the morning,” says architect Craig Dykers in the introduction to the list of 21 books he sent us, is “knowing . . . that the places where we live are not bound by catalogues of definitions—they are so much more.” Dykers is the co-founder of the New York and Oslo-based firm Snøhetta, More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 16, 2013

Graphic designer and curator Prem Krishnamurthy: Project Projects and P! (New York)
Profile     Book List
A founding principal of the New York studio Project Projects, graphic designer Prem Krishnamurthy has made text and the written word a major focus of what he does. The studio’s artists’ books and exhibition catalogues, along with its work in a range of media—from websites to exhibition design, signage, and visual identities with clients including the Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and SALT Istanbul—have been widely acclaimed for their progressive approach to visual form. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 9, 2013

Product/industrial designer Jens Martin Skibsted: KiBiSi and Biomega (Copenhagen)
Profile     Book List
Jens Martin Skibsted designs ahead-of-the curve bicycles for Biomega, a company he founded, and electronics, household products, and furnishings for the top Scandinavian industrial design studio KiBiSi, another firm he founded—along with Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Lars Larsen (Kilo Design). He has been named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for his design thinking and runs Skibsted Ideation, a design and branding agency. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 2, 2013

Design curator Aric Chen: M+ (Hong Kong)
Profile     Book List
Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
Profile
The recently appointed Curator of Design and Architecture at M+, the new museum for visual culture that will be a centerpiece of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, Aric Chen looks forward to developing a design and architecture permanent collection, including a library, for the museum. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 25, 2013

Product/industrial designer Carl Magnusson: CGM Design LLC (New York)
Profile     Book List
Design, believes Carl Magnusson, “must evoke an experience physically and culturally beyond its core function.” The eminent industrial designer—the winner of Contract magazine’s 2012 Legend Award for lifetime achievement—was talking about the “central message that stuck” from Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, on his book list for Designers and Books, but he was really talking about all of design. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 19, 2013

Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund: Alfred A. Knopf Books, Pantheon Books, Vertical Press (New York)
Profile     Book List
“How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books,” says Peter Mendelsund, the book designer who created 11 of the winning book covers for the “50 Books/50 Covers” competition of 2011 and whose covers for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy have been described by the Wall Street Journal as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 12, 2013

Product and graphic designer Freeman Lau: Kan & Lau Design Consultants (Hong Kong)
Profile     Book List
Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
Profile
Internationally renowned product and graphic designer Freeman Lau (Lau Siu-Hong), with more than 300 awards to his name, has designed everything from posters and books to prize-winning water bottle packaging and a series of intertwining chairs and stools. He is also recognized for his work as an educator and curator, and in 2011 was a curator of the Beijing International Design Triennial. Lau’s book CMYK (2012) was just released in Hong Kong and Beijing this past December. Design China’s Zara Arshad, in an interview for Designers & Books, sat down with Freeman Lau recently to talk about reading, writing, designing, and publishing books in Hong Kong and mainland China. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 5, 2013

Product/Industrial designer David Weeks: David Weeks Studio (New York)
Profile     Book List
Why do fiction and narrative hold such a great appeal for designers? One well-put answer comes from product designer David Weeks. “Whether it's a minor character in The World According to Garp who has halitosis and is described as ‘dying from the inside out‘ or Sartre’s description of finding his hand on a doorknob in Nausea, the fleeting imagery created from reading a well-written sentence is an act of design in itself.” More...