Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview

Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: August 23

August 23, 2013

This week’s highlights include a look at design and branding in popular bikeshare programs in several cities; a book list from Hong Kong-based AB Concept’s Ed Ng; our first installment of a series on rare antiquarian book finds; and—just in time for back-to-school—a look at the latest campus designs around the world. Next week, a book list from master of hospitality design Jeffrey Beers, and more.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Book List of the Week Ed Ng’s Book List: A Platform for Beautiful Pieces

Designers & Books talked with interior designer Ed Ng, co-founder of AB Concept, about his thinking, his book choices, and the new monograph featuring the firm’s work, The Language of Luxe, released this spring by ORO Editions.

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Daily Features Same Bike, Different City

Capitalizing on cities as brands and toning down expected visual tropes will temper the bike’s ubiquitous design and make it a unique part of each city’s infrastructure.

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Rare & Beautiful Rare & Beautiful: The World’s First Engraved Writing Book

The first installment of our “Rare & Beautiful” series, aimed at rediscovering overlooked gems in rare book collections, examines the engraving work of an 18-year-old Flemish virtuoso, Clément Perret.

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Daily Features Making the Grade

Campuses around the world are introducing designs that encourage a more well-rounded academic environment.

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Next Week's Preview

Book List of the Week Jeffrey Beers’s Book List: Fearless and Passionate

Prominent hospitality designer Jeffrey Beers chose many of the titles on his book list because “the subjects and authors are people I admire as leaders in their fields.” He adds, “Their personal philosophies have encouraged me to live passionately and fearlessly, and to always strive to create experiences that bring people joy.”

Daily Features The Man Who Designed Ulysses

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.

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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.

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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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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman

Love Letter to a Garden

By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025

From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.

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The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast by Seymour Chwast; curated by Steven Heller

The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast

By Seymour Chwast, curated by Steven Heller
Publisher: Gestalten
Published: June 2026

Seymour Chwast, legendary co-founder of Push Pin Studios, reinvented how we see and read picture books. The Picture Book Book gathers over 40 of his works, curated by Steven Heller, and offers a rare look at his playful, incisive approach to visual storytelling. From bold graphics to sly wit, Chwast’s books expanded the boundaries of design and children’s literature alike.

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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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