Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Rare & Beautiful
By Stephanie Salomon April 22, 2015

Rediscover Visual Design in Action (1961), a “lost milestone” of modern graphic design literature by the father of information graphics, Ladislav Sutnar. More...

Design Books to Win
April 9, 2015

This drawing is now closed. The winner is Joseph Swerdlin— congratulations! To mark the contribution that Kickstarter is making to design book publishing, we are giving away one copy of an enormously successful and much talked-about design book recently launched on Kickstarter (and no longer available): The New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual. Designed by Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda in 1970, it was re-created in book form in 2014 by Pentagram designers Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth.  More...

Themed Book Lists
March 31, 2015

We’ve updated our list of books of design manifestos, which includes the recently published compilation After the Manifesto (Columbia University GSAPP Books/T6 Ediciones, 2015). In an exciting development for us, Designers & Books is planning to help bring back in print this year another book on this list: Ladislav Sutnar: Visual Design in Action, a 1961 “monograph-cum-manifesto,” in the words of Steven Heller, featuring the work and ideas of the Czech forerunner of information design, Ladislav Sutnar (1897–1976). Watch for details! More...

Book List of the Week
March 23, 2015

French graphic designer (Robert) Massin’s Letter and Image (La Lettre et l’Image)—a survey of letterforms and type from pre-history to the present—was first published 45 years ago, in 1970. Known for his experimentation with typography and layout, Massin (b. 1925) is also recognized as a scholar of graphic design history. Letter and Image makes the book lists of design critic Rick Poynor, graphic designer Paula Scher, and others. More...

By Seymour Chwast March 23, 2015

Technical, humanist images from this 1920s and ’30s visual artist. . . . The books I like are human-size 3-D objects. They often contain things to ponder, ignore, memorize, and laugh and wonder at.

By Milton Glaser March 2, 2015

Berger is incapable of writing without astonishing you.

Book List of the Week
March 2, 2015

First published in 1939 in Japanese and translated into English in 1977, In Praise of Shadows considers Japanese aesthetics and its emphasis on subtlety and nuance. Ten designers, including architect David Adjaye, fashion design curator Akiko Fukai, and lighting deisgner Paul Marantz, cite the book as an inspiration for their work. More...

By Diana Balmori February 19, 2015

A priceless observation is: “To be without method is deplorable, but to depend entirely on method is worse. The end of all method is to seem to have no method.”

Themed Book Lists
February 19, 2015

Happy Lunar New Year! These 15 books on China and various aspects of design come from our designers, commentators, notable books contributors, and featured publishers and booksellers. More...

Themed Book Lists
February 12, 2015

Our annual Valentine’s Day book list for designers from our contributors, updated. More...