Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Book List of the Week
September 15, 2014

Almost all designers are in effect theorists, but here are five spanning different generations who are as much known for their theoretical reseach and experimentation as for their physical products. The designers are: architects Peter Eisenman (IAUS founder) and Jürgen Mayer H. (Metropol Parasol), graphic designers Sheila Levrant de Bretteville (Women’s Graphic Center) and Prem Krishnamurthy (Project Projects), and product designer Jonathan Olivares (A Taxonomy of Office Chairs). More...

By Jonathan Olivares September 15, 2014

Led me to see design as a kind of choreography.

Design Books to Win
September 10, 2014

It’s Fashion Week and we’re giving away two copies of two special fashion design books: Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe (Prestel Publishing) and The SFP LookBook: Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2014 Collections (Schiffer Fashion Press/Schiffer Publishing). Each of the two winners will each receive a copy of both books. Enter to win through Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 11:59 PM (EST). More...

Themed Book Lists
September 9, 2014

For Fashion Week, here are 12 books on shoes—fashion’s most beloved accessory—from Manolo Blahniks to Frye boots. More...

By Guo Pei September 8, 2014

I am especially interested in books that focus on fashion history because they reveal how we appreciated beauty in the past. ...This is also the book that has pushed me to want to build China’s first fashion museum. I have two dreams in life: to build a fashion museum, and to create a fashion library to inspire future generations.

Book List of the Week
September 8, 2014

Happy Year of the Pig! Revisit these four designers from China and Hong—each from a different area of design. They include product and graphic designer Freeman Lau, interior designer Ed Ng, fashion designer Guo Pei, and architect Rocco Yim. Also see our list of 15 Books on China and Design. More...

Design Books to Win
September 3, 2014

We’re giving away five copies each of Cover and What We See When We Read by book cover designer Peter Mendelsund, known for his iconic covers for works of literature and nonfiction. More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter September 2, 2014

Award-winning book cover designer and Alfred A. Knopf associate art director Peter Mendelsund talks with Designers & Books about not one but two books he’s written recently, both published this August: Cover (powerHouse Books), featuring a decade of his book cover designs, and What We See When We Read (Vintage Books), a meditation on how we visualize the words of writers. More...

By Mohsen Mostafavi September 1, 2014

An amazing critique of the English language explaining the parameters that constitute a classic work of literature—but equally important for the parallels between writing and architecture.

Book List of the Week
September 1, 2014

Back to school this week? Here are three “dean’s lists” of books selected by Mohsen Mostafavi, who heads Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design; Kent Kleinman, dean of Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning; and Alan Balfour, former dean of the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. More...