Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

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240 books

Sheherezade Janet Zweig et al. On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Malevich Larissa A. Zhadova On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	L’Art des Cyclades Christian Zervos On George Lois’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Making of Classical Edinburgh 1750–1840 Alexander John Brown Youngson On Alan Balfour’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Unknown Craftsman Soetsu Yanagi On Harry Pearce’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby Tom Wolfe On Michael Bierut’s Book List On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera Bertram Wolfe On Nancye Green’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Hand Frank Wilson On Milton Glaser’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Art and Politics in the Weimar Period John Willett On Abbott Miller’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Museum Legs Amy Whitaker On John Maeda’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees Lawrence Weschler On Maya Lin’s Book List On Glenn Pushelberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006–2009 Ai Weiwei On Amanda Dameron’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) Andy Warhol On Carin Goldberg’s Book List On Karim Rashid’s Book List On Jonathan Adler’s Book List On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List On Victoria Meyers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, 1679–1701 Gai Wang On Diana Balmori’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Fritz Kahn: Man Machine Uta and Thilo von Debschitz On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Exactitudes Ari Versluis et al. On Nathalie de Vries’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari On Alexa Hampton’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Fine Disregard Kirk Varnedoe On Ken Carbone’s Book List On Wendell Castle’s Book List Add to My Reading List	High & Low Kirk Varnedoe et al. On Paula Scher’s Book List On George Tscherny’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Bart van der Leck Toos van Kooten On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci Paul Valéry On Cino Zucchi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Cy Twombly: Zeichnungen 1953–1973 Cy Twombly et al. On Ivan Chermayeff’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Robert Smithson Eugenie Tsai On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Daybook: The Journey of an Artist Ann Truitt On Jessica Helfand’s Book List Add to My Reading List
J.W. Waterhouse Peter Trippi On Anna Sui’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Living Well Is the Best Revenge Calvin Tomkins On George Lois’s Book List On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List On David Easton’s Current Reading list Add to My Reading List	Lives of the Artists Calvin Tomkins On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Duchamp: A Biography Calvin Tomkins On Harry Pearce’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Shadow of the Silk Road Colin Thubron On Alan Balfour’s Book List Add to My Reading List	At the Edge of History William Irwin Thompson On Nancye Green’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Invisible Art The Art Brothers On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List	In Praise of Shadows Jun’ichiro Tanizaki On Antoine Predock’s Book List On Akiko Fukai’s Book List On Paul Marantz’s Book List On Tom Kundig’s Book List On David Adjaye’s Book List On Ada Tolla’s Book List On Giuseppe Lignano’s Book List On Craig Dykers’s Book List On Marco Romanelli’s Book List On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Interpreting the Renaissance (Ricerca dell’Rinascimento) Manfredo Tafuri On Jorge Silvetti’s Book List Add to My Reading List	De Kooning: An American Master Mark Stevens et al. On Jessica Helfand’s Book List On Matteo Thun’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Passport Saul Steinberg On Tom Geismar’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper Leo Steinberg On Milton Glaser’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Notebooks of Paul Klee, vol. 2: The Nature of Nature Jürg Spiller, ed. On Richard Saul Wurman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Notebooks of Paul Klee, vol. 1: The Thinking Eye Jürg Spiller, ed. On Richard Saul Wurman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Masterpieces from the House of Fabergé Alexander von Solodkoff On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Cover to Cover Michael Snow On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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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.

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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.

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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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