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

Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition Noah Webster, et al. On Giuseppe Lignano’s Book List On Ada Tolla’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary Anne H. Soukhanov On Rudy VanderLans’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Wealth of Cities John Norquist On Andrés Duany’s Book List Add to My Reading List	We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families Philip Gourevitch On Alexander Cooper’s Book List On Jens Holm’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Wayshowing Per Mollerup On Erik Spiekermann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Ways of Seeing John Berger On Milton Glaser’s Book List On Mark Fox’s Book List On Jennifer Morla’s Book List On Véronique Vienne’s Book List On Angus Hyland’s Book List On Alexa Hampton’s Book List On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Way to Cook Julia Child On Zuzana Licko’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Watt Samuel Beckett On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Watermark Joseph Brodsky On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Watchmen Alan Moore et al. On Jens Holm’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Washington Square Henry James On Paul Goldberger’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 War of Art Steven Pressfield On Carin Goldberg’s Book List On Tom Kelley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	War Music Christopher Logue On Alexander Cooper’s Book List Add to My Reading List	War and Peace Leo Tolstoy On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List On Massimo Vignelli’s Book List On André Leon Talley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra Walton Ford et al. On George Yabu’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Walter Pichler: Zwei Troge, Wasserrinnen Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman Add to My Reading List	Walter Pichler Walter Pichler et al. On Kent Kleinman’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Walter Gropius e la Bauhaus Giulio Carlo Argan On Massimo Vignelli’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	Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett On Sagi Haviv’s Book List On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List On Jonathan Barnbrook’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers Leonard Koren On George Yabu’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis On Jasper Morrison’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Voices of Silence André Malraux On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Vogue’s Book of Houses, Gardens, People Valentine Lawford On Jeffrey Bilhuber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius Pollio On Daniel Libeskind’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Visual Thinking Rudolf Arnheim On Milton Glaser’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Visual Explanations Edward R. Tufte On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List On Véronique Vienne’s Book List On Carola Zwick’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward R. Tufte On Denise Scott Brown’s Book List On Robert Venturi’s Book List On Véronique Vienne’s Book List On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List On Peter Bohlin’s Book List On Carola Zwick’s Book List On Dan Formosa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Visite Privée François Halard On Reed Krakoff’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan On Michael Rock’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Visions of Excess Georges Bataille On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Vision in Motion László Moholy-Nagy On Niels Diffrient’s Book List On Wendell Castle’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and Histories of Art Griselda Pollock On Akiko Fukai’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-1923 Johanna Drucker On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Visible Word Herbert Spencer On Zuzana Licko’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Visible and the Invisible Maurice Merleau-Ponty On Steven Holl’s Book List On Juhani Pallasmaa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Violin Maker John Marchese On Richard Sachs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Vindication: A Novel Frances Sherwood On Lisa Jenks’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Villa Triste Patrick Modiano On Christian Lacroix’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.

Order the book.

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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