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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2000 books

Suterisms David Suter On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Prague–New York Ladislav Sutnar On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Wooden Houses Makoto Suzuki et al. On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift On Tom Coward’s Book List On Daisy Froud’s Book List On Vincent Lacovara’s Book List On Geoff Shearcroft’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Riders to the Sea John Millington Synge On Margaret McCurry’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Agricola and Germania Cornelius Tacitus et al. On Diana Balmori’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Architecture and Utopia Manfredo Tafuri On Mohsen Mostafavi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Sphere and the Labyrinth (La sfera e il labirinto) Manfredo Tafuri et al. On Paolo Deganello’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Theories and History of Architecture (Teoria e storia dell’architettura) Manfredo Tafuri On Jorge Silvetti’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	Selected Short Stories Rabindranath Tagore On Shashi Caan’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Les Créateurs du temps Kazuyuki Takahashi On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Confronting Silence Toru Takemitsu On Sou Fujimoto’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Black Swan Nassim Taleb On Florian Idenburg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A.L.T. 365+ André Leon Talley On Stephen Burrows’s Book List On list of Books by André Leon Talley Add to My Reading List	Japan Design Ikko Tanaka et al. On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Design Going Forward (與設計向前行) Ikko Tanaka On Freeman Lau’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	Geoffrey Bawa Brian Brace Taylor On George Yabu’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry Elizabeth Taylor On Marion Fasel’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The World Must Change: Graphic Design and Idealism Leonie Ten Duis et al. On Rick Poynor’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object John Thackara On Zoë Ryan’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray On Isaac Mizrahi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Nudge Richard Thaler et al. On Ivan Chermayeff’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Invisible Art The Art Brothers On Seymour Chwast’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Warren Commission Report The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy On Neil Denari’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Marsh Arabs Wilfred Thesiger On Jasper Morrison’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Child’s Christmas in Wales Dylan Thomas On Victoria Meyers’s Book List Add to My Reading List	On Growth and Form D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson On Antoine Predock’s Book List On Stanley Abercrombie’s Book List On Jeanne Gang’s Book List On James Biber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Making of the English Working Class E. P. Thompson On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Dictionary of Visual Language Philip Thompson et al. On Angus Hyland’s Book List On Rick Poynor’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
Walden, or Life in the Woods Henry David Thoreau On Margaret McCurry’s Book List On Stanley Abercrombie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Work of Hipgnosis Storm Thorgerson On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Authentic Décor: The Domestic Interior 1620–1920 Peter Thornton On Witold Rybczynski’s Book List On Susan Weber’s Book List On Jeffrey Bilhuber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Form & Decoration: Innovation in the Decorative Arts, 1470–1870 Peter Thornton On Susan Weber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Sir John Soane: The Architect as Collector, 1753-1837 Peter Thornton et al. On Alexa Hampton’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	Costume Patterns and Designs Max Tilke On Claire Wilcox’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Three Found Fonts Jake Tilson On Louise Fili’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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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.

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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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