Debbie Millman’s Book List: A Self-Portrait
By Steve Kroeter December 9, 2013
As a child, the ebullient host of Design Matters, author, and branding expert Debbie Millman, writes in the introduction to her book list: “I ordered as many books as I could afford and when the boxes came in with my name on them, I spent a moment gingerly fingering the corrugated brown carton. I’d sit for a minute or two and imagine what was inside, what the books would be like, and of course how they would look. I have been in love with books ever since.”
That love of storytelling, both written and visual (and often a combination of both), is abundant in Millman’s choice of books and in the comments and even illustrations she sent accompany them. Several are books from her childhood. The Little Golden Book of Words, says Millman, “is one of the first books I ever remember reading. I remembered having little scraps of paper on the cover, with different illustrations of pets and fruit and, somehow, I remembered a carrot. I thought the book was about art, as the main image I had in my head was a simply, yet profoundly rendered color wheel. Long before eBay, I searched for this book in New York flea markets and finally found it. But it wasn’t a book about art, ironically enough; it is called “Words.” (That comment comes along with a photo of the color wheel.)
 |
| Color wheel form The Little Golden Book of Words by Selma Chambers, 1948 |
Another children’s book, Dot for Short, is about a ten-year-old girl who “sees an ad in a ladies’ magazine featuring a contest to write a limerick about ‘why you use Masterpiece Muffin mix.’ The prize was $10,000. She, of course, writes a limerick and . . . well, that’s all I am going to tell you. Needless to say the entire scenario of the book converged with my life, my interests, and even my fledging enchantment with—dare I say it—branding.”
Chris Ware’s Building Stories—a box of 14 individual pieces that include a gameboard, a newspaper, and two books, among other things, to tell the interlocking stories of the residents of one Chicago apartment building—is on Millman’s book list. She says, “The design is not limited to the story or the presentation of the book; it is central to the narrative.” Sprawling novels from the 18th to the 20th centuries also get their due. Millman comments on James Joyces’s Ulysses (the book not about design that has been cited by the most designers on Designers & Books), “A seminal quote from the book, ‘The longest way round is the shortest way home,’ has become the mantra of my life.“ Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is “remarkable in that it precedes modernism, postmodernism, and conceptual art by utilizing these techniques:
—blank chapters
—black pages
—white pages
—playful type
And it was all done in 1759!“
Debbie Millman has written six books on graphic design and branding, including the best-selling Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits, 2011 (Allworth Press) and The Brand Bible (2012, Rockport Publishers). Her most recent book, Self-Portrait as Your Traitor—just released this fall by HOW Books—is a a follow-up to her Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design (2009, HOW Books). In this new book of visual poetry, which combines writings and drawings, says Paula Scher in her introduction, Millman “has invented a 21st-century illuminated manuscript.”
Watch the special video trailer for Self-Portrait as Your Traitor on the Designers & Books Online Book Fair.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Forthcoming: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
By Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: October 4, 2019
A new and personal reading of the architecture, teachings, and legacy of Louis I. Kahn from Per Olaf Fjeld’s perspective as a former student. The book explores Kahn’s life and work, offering a unique take on one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Kahn’s Nordic and European ties are emphasized in this study that also covers his early childhood in Estonia, his travels, and his relationships with other architects, including the Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo.
.jpg)
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
Recent Articles
