Best-Selling Design Books at Rizzoli Bookstore, NY

These are the design books that were the best sellers at Rizzoli Bookstore in New York during June 2012.

The Sky’s the Limit Add to My Reading List

Robert Klanten
Sven Ehmann
Sofia Borges

Unleashing the creative potential offered by the latest developments in design and construction, this book presents spectacularly formed buildings, facades, and interiors as well as inspiring temporary projects and urban interventions by both young and established talents. The projects featured here have all been built, are actively in use, and transport us to the outer limits of our spatial imagination.

Dutch Architects and Their Houses Add to My Reading List

Frank Visser
Photographs by Mirjam Bleeker

Contains 16 extensive reports on the lofts, apartments or houses where leading Dutch architects such as as Herman Herzberger, Gunnar Daan, Felix Claus, and others live. Each report is accompanied by a text in which the architect expounds his/her own vision on architecture.

Type Matters! Add to My Reading List

Jim Williams
Foreword by Ben Casey

A book of tips for everyday use, for all users of typography, from students and professionals to anyone who does any layout design on a computer.

Design in Question Add to My Reading List

Elisava School of Design Editor
Design2context Editor

In 2009, Ruedi Baur, Design2context, and the renowned Elisava School of Design in Barcelona launched a call for “Questions on Design” in order to create a typographical wall in the entrance area of Elisava. About a hundred persons from all over the world, designers as well as students, took part in the exercise. As of today, more than 700 questions have been gathered and put onto the wall. Among them, Vera and Ruedi Baur have selected the wittiest questions for this publication. They scrutinize different facets of design which are currently relevant in diverse fields, such as the natural sciences and society as a whole.

From Ornament to Object Add to My Reading List

Alina Payne

In the late 19th century, a centuries-old preference for highly ornamented architecture gave way to a budding modernism of clean lines and unadorned surfaces. At the same moment, everyday objects—cups, saucers, chairs, and tables—began to receive critical attention. Alina Payne addresses this shift, arguing for a new understanding of the genealogy of architectural modernism.

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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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