Peter Mendelsund
Peter Mendelsund’s Book List
I don’t believe I’ve ever read a “design book” in my entire life. (I don’t think I’ve ever read a single book devoted solely to the visual arts or architecture either, unless you include the occasional biography of a painter, or an essay collection here and there that might have happened to include some piece or other on design or the visual arts.) Furthermore, I have no formal training as a designer so I wasn’t asked to read these books in an academic program either. All of which is to say: I am completely virginal when it comes to the literature of art and design.
How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books. The seminal books, for me, were books that related to design only inasmuch as all of life is related to design—and literature and philosophy books have taught me about life: the forms life takes, the ways in which those forms of life can be organized, disorganized, and reorganized. These non-design books are the books that made me a better designer.
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Lesson(s) learned: Less is more; the world in a grain of sand; etc., etc.
Lesson(s) learned: Life can be messy and beautiful in equal measure. (Design can be, too.)
One of the ancillary benefits of having children is that it offers one an excuse to reread one’s favorite children’s books. Many times. I came back to Harold and the Purple Crayon when my first daughter was born and have subsequently read it out loud to both my children approximately one billion times. And the book holds up. It is a tale of a boy who makes his own adventure, and his own way through this adventure, with nothing more than the eponymous crayon. It was my first and most profound lesson in world-building. Lesson(s) learned: All you need is a crayon.
A sprawling novel that won the Nobel Prize in 1915 and was the most massively popular work of its time. Now largely forgotten (perhaps out of print even?). I read Jean Christophe in tenth grade at the urging of my grandfather Henoch Mendelsund. The book is based, roughly, on the life of Beethoven, and it was my first glimpse at the mythology of the artist-as-superhero. Lesson(s) learned: Nobody is as cool as he or she who makes things.
Lesson(s) learned: Humor and profundity can coexist. And: Style matters.
The book that, of all the books I’ve read, comes the closest to accurately reflecting this slippery world of ours. It is the book that feels, when one is reading it, the most like what it feels to be alive. Lesson(s) learned: Hold a mirror up to life.
Lesson(s) learned: Think things through. Be thorough, methodical, meticulous. When you write, speak, or commit an image to paper, know what you mean.
Ulysses is a novel that is intensely unified despite its being comprised of every stylistic and rhetorical literary and narrative device known to man. Lesson(s) learned: An artist can be a shape-shifter while retaining a strong identity and sense of integrity.
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What is Universal Everything? edited by Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook
What is Universal Everything?
Edited by Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook; designed by Spin
Publisher: Unit Editions
Published: June 2019
Matt Pyke, founder and creative director of Universal Everything, calls his studio a “digital art and design collective.” Now, after 15 years of revolutionary work in the digital realm, the studio has its first book. For anyone interested in the future of digital design, the book features a unique cover for each copy of the book (limited to 2,000)—every buyer owns a one-off.
Five Oceans in a Teaspoon by Dennis Bernstein and Warren Lehrer
Five Oceans in a Teaspoon
Poems by Dennis Bernstein
Visualizations by Warren Lehrer
Introduction by Steven Heller
Publisher: Paper Crown Press
Published: September 19, 2019
“From a kidnap note for a world held hostage by an A-bomb, to a Holocaust survivor’s tattooed arms where the numbers just don’t add up, Five Oceans in a Teaspoon re-envisions a poetry memoir via a textual kaleidoscope... Bernstein and Lehrer are the Rodgers and Hart of Visual Poetry.” — Bob Holman, poet, poetry activist and chronicler, and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City by Paul Goldberger
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
By Paul Goldberger
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: May 2019
An illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic.
Charleston Fancy by Witold Rybczynski
Charleston Fancy: Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City
By Witold Rybczynski
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: May 2019
Charleston, South Carolina, which boasts America’s first historic district, is known for its palmetto-lined streets and picturesque houses. The Holy City, named for its profusion of churches, exudes an irresistible charm. Award-winning author and cultural critic Witold Rybczynski unfolds a series of stories about a group of youthful architects, builders, and developers based in Charleston: a self-taught home builder, an Air Force pilot, a fledgling architect, and a bluegrass mandolin player.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
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