Book List of the Week

Intimate Identities: Louise Fili’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter August 7, 2012

Louise Fili

Graphic Designer Louise Fili: Louise Fili Ltd (New York)

For graphic designer Louise Fili, books play an outsize role. Her extensive body of work includes nearly 2,000 book jacket designs as well as numerous concepts for packaging, logos, and brand identities. Her latest book (she’s written or co-written more than 20 books), Elegantissima: The Design and Typography of Louise Fili, to be released in August by Princeton Architectural Press, is the first monograph to showcase the breadth of her career.

Fili’s elegant typography is often hand-drawn, a nuanced method of creating that finds parallels in the books that have influenced her. “Favorite books offer a certain intimacy,” she explains to Designers & Books in the introduction to her book list. “As a designer and teacher, I constantly rely on these books not only as a source of inspiration but also to share; I savor the excitement of introducing them to my staff and students.”

Among the books that serve as a source of inspiration for Fili are Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!) by George Lois (featured in a Designers & Books Author Q&A): “When legendary adman George Lois speaks, we all listen. I gave a signed copy to everyone on my staff.” There is also Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles 1628–1900 by Cees de Joong and Alston Purvis, about which she comments: “Every time I open it I find a new surprise.” For Fili, The Handy Book of Artistic Printing “is eye candy at its best,” and her “affection for food, type, and Italy” draws her to The Wine-Dark Sea by Leonardo Sciascia. “In 13 short stories, the brilliant Sciascia deftly captures the essence of Sicily,” she says.

Elegantissima: The Design and Typography of Louise Fili, forthcoming August 2012 (Princeton Architectural Press)

With a specialty in food packaging and restaurant menu and brand design, Fili has created packaging for best-selling products by companies such as Williams-Sonoma, redefined brands like Sarabeth’s, and developed recognizable logos for Jean-Georges and The Harrison, among several other notable New York restaurants. Her work frequently weds vintage and contemporary, an idea reflected in the comment for another book found on her list, Schriftenatlas by Ludwig Petzendorfer: “Although this book was published in 1898, the type samples always look remarkably fresh to me.”

The books that Fili herself has written include, among many other works on type, the recent Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age, co-authored with Steven Heller and published by Thames & Hudson in 2011.

View Louise Fili’s Profile View Louise Fili’s Book List

See more graphic designers’ book lists

comments powered by Disqus

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

Order the book.

Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

Order the book.

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

Order the book.

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

Order the book.