Interviews

 

50 blog entries
Talking Eds
By Wes Del Val January 26, 2021

In this installment of Talking Eds, Wes Del Val talks to Rory McGrath, cofounder, with Olly Knight, of the London-based design studio OK-RM and its publishing imprint, InOtherWords. Discover their newest book projects—and the design books that inspire them. More...

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

Graphic design critic Rick Poynor: Design Observer (London)
book list
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...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter April 30, 2014

Designers & Books talks with Dan Saffer, a Creative Director at Smart Design and author of four books on design, including, most recently, Microinteractions: Designing with Details, on importance of designing the “small stuff” from phone settings to smoke detector alarms. More...

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

Michael Rock, founding partner of the graphic design studio 2x4, talks to Designers & Books about how graphic design is like literature (and vice versa), More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter November 6, 2013

Architect and interior designer William T. Georgis talks about the first book that influenced him, collaboration with artists, what he thinks about fashion, and the monograph of his work published this summer aptly titled Make It Fabulous (The Monacelli Press). More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 26, 2012

Interior, product, graphic, and fashion designer Todd Oldham: Todd Oldham Studio, Inc. (New York)
Profile    Book List
Design editor and writer Wendy Goodman: New York magazine (New York)
Profile    Video
Indefatigable designer, writer, and reader Todd Oldham talks to design editor Wendy Goodman of New York magazine in an interview for Designers & Books—about what (and how) he reads and writes. Authors Dorothy Parker and Amy and David Sedaris, artists Cindy Sherman and Tim Hawkinson, film director Sidney Lumet, and designers Roberto Burle Marx, Tony Duquette, Charley Harper, and Alexander Girard are all part of the mix.

 

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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...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter October 14, 2014

As part of last month’s London Design Festival, British product designer Jasper Morrison’s Shop—which sells a variety of products from around the world in “a modern interpretation of the classic hardware store”—featured an exhibition of Morrison’s photographs along with his reflections on the seemingly ordinary situations contained in them. Designers & Books caught up with Morrison to talk about the book, what he reads (at last year’s London Design Festival he turned the Shop into a Library of Design), and why and what he photographs. More...

Interviews
By Amanda Kolson Hurley, Superscript October 1, 2013

The architectural historian and critic demystifies the ubiquitous but still largely esoteric subject of architecture for a broad audience. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter October 25, 2011

Graphic design curator, educator, and practitioner Ellen Lupton: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (New York) and Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore)
Book List
Being at the intersection, as she is, of the worlds of design, publishing, academia, and museums, Ellen Lupton has a unique perspective on the importance and power of language. In the introduction to her list of “Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read” she makes the (not intuitively obvious) claim that “reading and writing are fundamental skills for any graphic designer.” She describes writing as the process of “converting fleeting notions into concrete things”—which seems to be not a bad working definition of design itself—and asserts that those who are truly influential in graphic design are all “confident and creative writers.” More...