Designers & Books Blog

 

856 blog entries
Daily Features
By Anne Quito, Superscript August 27, 2013

Presented at Columbia's current exhibition “Wide Awake Typographer,” Ernst Reichl's handwritten notes—candid, witty, scholarly, and at times acerbic—give visitors a first-person tour of the typographic designer's lively mind. More...

Archives & Libraries
By Witold Rybczynski November 14, 2013

Kahn’s original drawings models, and correspondence offer a “view from the drafting room” of the architect’s work, writes Witold Rybczynski. More...

Archives & Libraries
By Elizabeth Meggs May 30, 2017

Designer and design history educator Elizabeth Meggs selects 16 books from the library of her father—the pioneering graphic design historian Philip B. Meggs (d. 2002) who authored the landmark Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, recently updated in a sixth edition—and her mother, art director and writer/illustrator Libby Phillips Meggs. More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter June 7, 2011

Architecture curator and architectural historian Barry Bergdoll: The Museum of Modern Art and Columbia University (New York)
book list
A lover of books and architecture would be hard-pressed to find three finer libraries than the Helen Kate Furness Free Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania; the Avery Library at Columbia University in New York; and the Cambridge University Library in England.

These, as it turns out, are the libraries that have been in Barry Bergdoll’s life—while growing up, while in college and graduate school, and while a Kellett Fellow abroad. In these libraries he says, “I had the luck of spending many of my days.” In fact, Bergdoll at one point imagined that “being a librarian might be the best of all possible worlds.” More...

Architecture
By Steve Kroeter July 31, 2012

Architect Michael Manfredi: Weiss/Manfredi (New York)
Profile     Book List
Architect Michael Manfredi sent along to Designers & Books an “electic” list of books that he says “continue to be my valued friends, mentors, provocateurs, and sources of inspiration.” More...

Rare & Beautiful
By Peter Kraus July 7, 2021

Peter Kraus of Ursus Books looks at Futurist masterpieces, photo-books, and other graphically innovative publications produced in Italy during the first half of the twentieth century. More...

Notable Design Books: Reviews
By Erik Spiekermann March 15, 2012

Guest blogger: Erik Spiekermann (Edenspiekermann AG: Berlin)
Profile   Notable Books of 2011
Guest blogger and graphic designer Erik Spiekermann examines a book on the history of modern German thought from all angles, including its ingenious cover design. More...

Interviews
By Steve Kroeter September 23, 2014

The Folio Society, based in London, has been producing special editions of classic books since 1947. Joe Whitlock Blundell, design and production director of The Folio Society, answered some questions for us about the enduring allure of the beautifully crafted book and walked us through a Society book’s typical design process. More...

Daily Features
November 21, 2014

Our first Online Book Fair Holiday Gift Guide now includes new additions such as Room (Phaidon Press), Melting Away (Princeton Architectural Press), and Lella and Massimo Vignelli: Two Lives, One Vision—all offered at special discounts through December 31. Featuring over 145 new and newly selected books in architecture, design, art, and photography,  the Holiday Gift Guide is designed to make this year’s holiday shopping for design and book lovers easy, informative, affordable—and fun. More...

Daily Features
By Stephanie Salomon March 22, 2022

This Women’s History Month, we’re honored to showcase a new book by Debbie Millman, ebullient host of the award-winning podcast “Design Matters“ and a treasured member of our Designers & Books community. The newly released Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People (Harper Collins, 2022) is Millman’s “love letter to creativity.” More...