Book List of the Week

The Book List of the Week highlights the list of books provided by invited designers (including architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, landscape architects, product designers, urban designers, and other design professionals) who have chosen books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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189 blog entries

Book List of the Week

References and New Discoveries: Alexander Haldemann’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 9, 2013

Branding design firm executive Alexander Haldemann: MetaDesign (San Francisco)
Profile Book List
As head of MetaDesign, an award-winning brand-design agency that has developed brand systems for clients like Apple, Adobe, Current.TV, Nike, and Sony, Alexander Haldemann spends a lot of time thinking, writing, and speaking about the creativity needed to communicate the identities of some of the world’s most recognizable products. More...

Book List of the Week

Books Old and New, Thin and Thick: Mels Crouwel’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 2, 2013

Architect Mels Crouwel: Benthem Crouwel Architects (Amsterdam and Aachen)
Profile Book List
A list of a dozen books sent along by Mels Crouwel showcases the Dutch architect’s affinity for modernist classics, contemporary culture, and sprawling storytelling. Crouwel is a founding partner in Benthem Crouwel, whose high-profile portfolio of architectural and infrastructure projects in the Netherlands include the recent renovation and expansion of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the restoration and expansion of the Anne Frank House, and the master plan for Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. He calls his book list “just a selection—old and new.” More...

Book List of the Week

Breaking the Rules: Wendell Castle’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 25, 2013

Furniture designer and sculptor Wendell Castle: Wendell Castle Inc. (Le Roy, New York)
Profile Book List
Celebrated as the father of the American studio furniture movement, Wendell Castle has been designing sculptural tables and seating as well as lighting and other functional objects for more than 50 years. Examples of his signature work in stack-laminated wood and fiberglass have become part of the permanent collections of major U.S. museums. More...

Book List of the Week

Subtle Illumination: Inga Sempé’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 17, 2013

Product/industrial and lighting designer Inga Sempé: Inga Sempé (Paris)
Profile Book List
French product designer Inga Sempé—known for her pleated paper and pendant lamps, ruched sofas, and other distinctive twists on everyday objects—credits her parents in ways both large and small when it comes to what she reads and how she looks at books. “Almost 95 percent of the books I have read were given to me by my mother,” she admits in the introduction to her list for Designers & Books. More...

Book List of the Week

An Architecture Critic Commits: Julie Iovine’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 4, 2013

Architecture critic Julie Iovine: The Wall Street Journal (New York)
Profile Book List
“I look to books for everything imaginable, and unimaginable. They shape my outlook, but also throw open spaces I could never have found on my own. The chance to consider an essential list is wonderfully engrossing, and also a bit of a nasty parlor trick. Must I commit?” is how Wall Street Journal architecture critic Julie Iovine begins her book list for Designers & Books. More...

Book List of the Week

Architecture, Urbanism, History, and Theater: Hugh Hardy’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 28, 2013

In honor of the remarkable career of architect Hugh Hardy (1932–March 17, 2017), a look back at our interview with Hardy and a list of the books that inspired him, which he describes as “a mixed bag of gifts and explanations: history, architecture, urban affairs, and theater.” We caught up with Hardy, known for his design of some of New York's most celebrated theaters—from Broadway houses to Radio City to Lincoln Center—on the occasion of the release of his book Theater of Architecture (2013, Princeton Architectural Press). More...

Book List of the Week

Lightness and Colors: Matteo Thun’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 21, 2013

Architect, interior and product/industrial designer Matteo Thun: Matteo Thun & Partners (Milan)
Profile Book List
Matteo Thun needed something that functions like “a phone book” * to show the varied work for which he has become known over the course of his career. That work includes co-founding (with Ettore Sottsass) Memphis—the industrial design collective that defined Italian design in the 1970s and 1980s—and also the hotels, private residences, housewares, and lighting designed by his own firm, Matteo Thun & Partners. More...

Book List of the Week

Product Design, the Practical and the Academic: Michael Maharam’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 14, 2013

Textile design firm executive Michael Maharam: Maharam (New York)
Profile Book List
As CEO of his family’s over 110-year-old textile firm, Michael Maharam has introduced the work of modern and contemporary graphic, fashion, and industrial designers to the company’s commercial fabric lines. Hella Jongerius, Maira Kalman, Abbott Miller, and Paul Smith, among many others, have all designed for Maharam, which has become known for the progressive design and engineering of its textiles for architects and interior designers. More...

Book List of the Week

Books Every Jewelry Designer Should Read: Marion Fasel’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter April 30, 2013

Jewelry and watch design editor Marion Fasel: InStyle (New York)
Profile Book List
“To be a jewelry designer is a calling,” says Marion Fasel, InStyle’s jewelry editor since 1996, the year she launched the magazine’s award-winning coverage of the field. “You have to actively seek an education,” Fasel continues, “and books are one of the best resources.” More...

Book List of the Week

Senses, Memory, and the Realm of Place: Craig Dykers’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter April 23, 2013

Architect Craig Dykers: Snøhetta (New York and Oslo)
Profile Book List
“What gets me up in the morning,” says architect Craig Dykers in the introduction to the list of 21 books he sent us, is “knowing . . . that the places where we live are not bound by catalogues of definitions—they are so much more.” Dykers is the co-founder of the New York and Oslo-based firm Snøhetta, More...

Announcements

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.

Order the book.

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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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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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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