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.
189 blog entries
Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 13, 2014

The son of a famous pair of designers—his father is Gijs Bakker, co-founder of the Dutch design collective Droog and one of the first and most influential conceptual designers; his mother is the late jewelry designer Emmy van Leersum—Aldo Bakker is known for his designs for furniture and tableware in materials such as wood, porcelain, copper, and glass that also have an interactive quality. Objects, he believes, “communicate emotion through association, touch, texture, and materiality.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 6, 2014

A former student of Italian literature and art history and an inveterate traveler, Temple St. Clair discovered jewelry design by collaborating with master artisans in Italy to create unique pieces featuring precious metals and gemstones. These strands weave among the books St. Clair—a 2011 recipient of the Hall of Fame award from the Accessories Council for Excellence, recognized for her rock-crystal amulets and use of colored gems —chose for her Designers & Books list. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 23, 2013

On the walls in one of her rooms at home, Sheila Bridges has painted the words of the authors and books she loves, she tells Design Matters’s Debbie Millman in a recent interview. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 16, 2013

IDEO partners, and brothers, Tom and David Kelley talk with Designers & Books about being lucky kids, why they started the hashtag #creativeconfidence—and what it really means, as explained in the new book they wrote together: Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential within Us All (2013, Crown Business). More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 9, 2013

As a child, host of Design Matters, author, and branding expert Debbie Millman writes in the introduction to her book list: “I ordered as many books as I could afford and when the boxes came in with my name on them, I spent a moment gingerly fingering the corrugated brown carton. I’d sit for a minute or two and imagine what was inside, what the books would be like, and of course how they would look. I have been in love with books ever since.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter December 2, 2013

The award-winning Toronto and New York-based interior designers George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg share a love of books as well as a creative life together. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 25, 2013

At a time when the return to handcraftsmanship is often in the news and the community of design “makers” continues to grow, the custom bicycles built by Richard Sachs—and the attentiveness he brings to building them—are still a rare ideal. This same attentiveness is just as evident in what he calls the “pile“ of books he “built” for his list. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 18, 2013

“Encountering knowledge is like encountering love,” writes Milan-based architect Cino Zucchi in the introduction to his book list. “The books that have been meaningful to us are more often ‘found’ than searched for.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 11, 2013

“Everything I’m currently obsessed with can serve as inspiration for my work: films, exhibitions, music, travel, flea markets. And books!” fashion designer Ann Sui proclaims. ”I love doing the research, learning about something new.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 4, 2013

For his (long—22 books) list for Designers & Books, writer, graphic designer, and multimedia artist Warren Lehrer, known as a pioneer in the field of visual literature, or “vis lit,” decided to focus on “books (mostly fiction, some non-fiction, a few hybrids) whose visual composition is an integral part of the writing.” More...