Jonathan Barnbrook

This novel made my head explode. It contains the exact text of what would happen to me if I ever became mentally ill. It also has on every page enough concepts and amazing visual ideas for me to explore over several lifetimes. The themes contained within it distill all the important motivations, irritations, memes, and distractions of the late 20th century. The storyline about reconstructing the assassination of JFK to stop the outbreak of a third nuclear war is fantastically creative. The style of writing, which jumps from cold, analytical medical text to short-attention-span advertising-style copy, makes it a breeze to read. It’s full of madness but contains a logic that makes it a complete and self-contained work of art.

This is the “bible” of my youth and it put me on the path to being a designer who couldn’t separate “the self” from the message in the work. It’s about a man who feels conflict between the instinctive and the intellectual sides of himself. He wants to rise above being merely “human” to lead a purely intellectual life, but also yearns to be very much part of society and live in the moment. It’s beautifully and profoundly written. When I first started to read it I couldn’t breathe for the first few pages—it was like someone had experienced my life and emotions already. Importantly, the book is first and foremost optimistic. From it I understood that we do have to live in the moment: laugh, love, live as much as we can, as well as appreciate, grow, and try to comprehend the big themes that every person faces in life.

Orwell is one of the most influential 20th-century writers in Britain and my teenage years were consumed with voraciously reading everything by him. His more documentary-style books, like Down and Out in Paris and London or The Road to Wigan Pier, have a clear unfussy style, yet he still manages to tell a story brilliantly. Orwell’s 1984 has been so influential on my work, from the way he analyzes dictatorships to terms like “Newspeak” and “Doublethink,” which crystalize how our thoughts are shaped (or repressed) by the society we live in. I am constantly going back to him for ideas to include in my work.

Yes, I know you have heard of him and this play to the point of cliché, but Shakespeare is like the Beatles: you think that they can’t possibly be any good because of the kind of person who usually says, “I like The Beatles,” and then you listen—or in this case, read—and you think, “Hey, actually they are really very good.” After years of struggling with Shakespeare, I have just started reading him properly and was helped with a version that had clear English translations next to each piece of text. If you take your time and read both, then the magic, complexity of thought, amazing understanding of human nature, romance, humor, and beautiful use of language will be revealed. I believe that if you don’t know about some of the scenarios or characters in his works then you are missing out on a whole part of English culture that references him. Macbeth is a good place to start reading Shakespeare as it is fairly short and also has a lot of dark motives—always good for holding your attention.