Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: December 6
December 6, 2013
This week brought a bounty of December reviews of Notable Design Books of 2013, a gift list with graphic design enthusiasts in mind, and a look at some unusual bookstore displays. We are also excited to announce the opening of our third Design Books to Win drawing: six copies of the second edition of the seminal architecture book Learning from Las Vegas signed by authors Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown will be given away by Designers & Books. Next week, Debbie Millman gives us her book list and we investigate how Switzerland brands itself. Be sure to shop at our Online Design Book Fair. We continue to add new features, and books (among them, Stefan Sagmeister’s latest), and this weekend we’re highlighting a new video trailer of Debbie Millman talking about her most recent book. Princeton Architectural Press has also joined the Fair, where it is offering a 40% discount on its titles.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Our December reviews cover architecture from suburbs to staircases, and graphic design from Swiss magazines to the work of Dutch book designer Irma Boom. We look at a new book on the product designs of Eva Zeisel, the interiors of Mario Buatta, and also Moroccan carpets—and even a book from the minds at IDEO on how to achieve “creative confidence.”
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Six copies of the second edition of the seminal architecture book Learning from Las Vegas (1977; originally published 1972) by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour—signed by Venturi and Scott Brown—will be given away in a drawing. This rare opportunity honors the 45th anniversary of the groundbreaking 1968 Yale studio course that prompted the book. Details on how to enter the drawing, which closes Saturday, December 21.
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From minimal presentation to falling off the shelves, bookstores around the world display books in very different ways.
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Our second book list developed in collaboration with CreativeMornings, a breakfast lecture series for the creative community, each with a monthly theme, is based on December’s theme: “Make.”
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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.
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The second of our holiday gift guides offers a sampling of books published in 2013 selected with every graphic design enthusiast on your gift list in mind. Included are books on type, on advice from the pros for graphic design students, a graphic design book for children (that adults will want, too), and a look at the book as art.
More...Next Week's Preview
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.”
Swiss branding designers discuss the challenges of defining an entire country through graphic design.
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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.
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.
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.”
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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