Aldo Bakker’s Book List
My list consists of a selection of books that were important to me at the time I discovered them and in a way still are. As an autodidact, I have used these books over and over again to study design. They had a huge influence on my education.
I tend to be quite selective when buying books. When I love the work of an artist but do not like the way the book is designed I don’t buy it. I am convinced that the design of the book should always interact with the content.
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Wholeness: there is no boundary between big and small, between technique, function, gesture, rhythm—they all inspire each other equally, everything is treated with the same amount of effort and complexity. I am always very impressed by Scarpa’s work and TOTO has managed to present it in the most complete and beautiful manner.
The books and projects of Kenya Hara are intensely beautiful. He gives so much attention to every single element: the photography, the paper, the graphic design. This book is so consistent and convincing that it pulls you into a completely different world.
Sanaa interprets and purifies the normal and the actual in such a way that it defines a new, almost floating architecture. The tone of the book reflects the identity of this firm very well. The book is so densely filled that you keep feeling the need to dive into it again and again in the hope of discovering something new.
Introduces Miralles’s highly personal form of language, complex and rich in form and composition. On many points the book is incomprehensible, but it still continues to attract me and pose questions. I used to have a weakness for El Croquis publications, as they present an overload of information and good, new photography.
Ron Mueck must have a deep interest in people and care about them greatly to be able to create such intimate, strange yet familiar sculptures. This book discloses Mueck’s process of making, but, remarkably, this doesn’t interfere at all with the poetry of the work. Instead, it only intensifies the experience.
A book with sublime forms and new findings. It shows a thorough understanding of nature, not by imitating it but by expressing it in a highly personal visual language. The editors managed to capture a true experience of the Finnish artist and designer and his work by using photographs made by Wirkkala, by photographing his trained and experienced hands, and by including sketches and technical drawings. The graphic design and text editing were done by Juhani Pallasmaa.
Hans den Hartog Jager is an inspired and ambitious Dutch art critic who is not afraid to take a position. I read his reviews and interviews like a detective. Hans is able to describe the mystical as well as sensual sides of art and design—something that not many other critics seem to do.
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Understanding Understanding: New from Richard Saul Wurman
Understanding Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Publisher: Richard Saul Wurman and Jack Dangermond
Published July 30, 2017
From the author of Information Architecture, who says about his newest book: “This is a book for people to dip into, as they would walk in and out of the room of a dinner party and embrace their interests. . . Before the rules on how to organize information, before you learn grammar, before you work hard at expanding your vocabulary and go through the exercises of parallel meanings of things as using a Thesaurus and as one writes papers in class, before any learning one must understand.”
The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison
The Hard Life
by Jasper Morrison
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published in US: May 22, 2017
Photographs taken by designer Jasper Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal. “The objects photographed and described may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest. The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy.”
Paula Scher: Works - Order from Unit Editions
Paula Scher: Works
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published April 2017
New book covering the career of of master designer Paula Scher, called “the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet.” (Ellen Lupton), This definitive, chronological visual record spans Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.
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Type Tells Tales: New from Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Type Tells Tales
by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published May 30, 2017
Reveals how type can become both content and illustration, as letters take the form of people, animals, cars, or planes. With numerous illustrations by F. T. Marinetti, Bruno Munari, and Francis Picabia, among others, as well as by contemporary designers such as Richard Eckersley, John Hendrix, Maira Kalman, and Corita Kent.
The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design: New from Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio
The Moderns
by Steven Heller and Greg D’Onofrio
Publisher: Abrams
Published September 19, 2017
Featuring more than 60 designers whose magazine, book, and record covers; advertisements and package designs; posters; and other projects created the visual aesthetics of postwar modernity in America. Some were émigrés from Europe; others were homegrown; all were intoxicated by elemental typography, primary colors, photography, and geometric or biomorphic forms. Some are well-known, others are honored in this volume for the first time, and together they comprised a movement that changed our design world.
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