Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Daily Features
By The Editors April 29, 2014

With its 57th Street location now closed, Rizzoli Bookstore offers one last chance on May 1 and 2 to visit its fabled interior and purchase art and design books at 50% discounts. More...

By Phil Patton April 23, 2014

Ultimately, the book is a story about hope and regret, grief, and self-expression, wrapped around an old-fashioned mystery. Champa writes. “What is a vehicle but a private capsule? One in which the mundane errands and memorable adventures of a life are accomplished. By some alchemy, through this constant association, a mingling, a transmutation, can occur.”

Themed Book Lists
April 23, 2014

Here are 30 (updated August 19, 2014) books on the design of cars and car culture (its past and its future)—including two novels—from our contributors. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 21, 2014

A book list from Dan Formosa, who in 1981 helped form Smart Design, a group based on the idea that design is first and foremost about people. His work on OXO Good Grips kitchen tools became a symbol of products designed to work for every user. The interface he created for XM/Sirius established the standard for satellite radio in the U.S. More...

By Dan Formosa April 21, 2014

An insightful look into creativity both within and outside the corporation. I’ve referred many people to it.

By Stanley Abercrombie April 16, 2014

In his preface the author asks “[W]ill this study serve merely as a memorial to a defunct building type?” The book’s final words answer that “… humankind has created an extraordinary variety of spaces in which to read, to think, to dream and to celebrate knowledge. As long as humankind continues to value these activities, it will continue to build places to house them. Whether they will involve books or will still be called libraries, only time will tell.” If indeed what we now know as the library disappears, this book will be the perfect reminder of all that we will have lost.

Themed Book Lists
April 16, 2014

National (U.S.) Library Week is this week: April 13–19, 2014. Here are six books about libraries and library design from our contributors. More...

By Margie Ruddick April 14, 2014

I must have read this book several hundred times as a child—a pure escape from, and then restoration to, urban life; a mix of love and loss and landscape.

Book List of the Week
April 14, 2014

Our contributing designers find inspiration and recall formative moments in reading children’s books. Here are five book lists from our archive that have included books written for children, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Harry Potter. More...

Books on Designers
April 9, 2014

Updated: June 8, 2017. Celebrate the 150th birthday of Frank Lloyd Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867–April 9, 1959), by re-reading our list of 21 (now 21-plus) books from our contributors on the American architectural icon. More...