Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview, May 30
May 30, 2014May’s many design events worldwide inspired our Book List of the Week posts on Dutch designers, British graphic designers, and lighting designers, plus new lists of books focusing on color, textiles, and photography. In June, watch for Designers & Books’ newly expanded Online Book Fair—including new publishers and discounts on art and photography books as well as on design and architecture titles.
Weekly Wrap-Up

Color in theory and practice, from Josef Albers to Pantone—our vintage list of books from our contributors.
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Books that illuminate! To mark longer, lighter days and the spring calendar of high-profile design events in May around the world, including New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), which showcases product design in 11 different categories, and London’s Clerkenwell Design Week, we feature the books that inspire five designers of lamps and lighting.
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“To be human is to be involved with cloth,” says the author of Textiles: The Whole Story, one of 20 books on textile design from around the world and different historical periods that come from our contributing designers, publishers, and booksellers. More books on textile history and design can be found on the Designers & Books Online Book Fair.
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This week we highlight five book lists chosen by British graphic designers and critics (some are authors of their own major books on graphic design), from Penguin book cover designer Coralie Bickford-Smith to Eye magazine founding editor and visual culture critic Rick Poynor. Our complete list of graphic designers includes 46 contributors.
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Photographers have long influenced the work and thinking of designers. This selection of 15 books have been chosen or written by our contributing designers and design writers, including Seymour Chwast, Jasper Morrison, Maira Kalman, and Rudy VanderLans.
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Designers from the Netherlands and the books that have influenced them are the subject of today’s Book List of the Week. The contributing designers are Droog founder Gijs Bakker, product designer Aldo Bakker, graphic designer Wim Crouwel, architect Mels Crouwel, and architect and founder of MVRDV Nathalie de Vries.
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We revisit graphic design icon Massimo Vignelli’s book list—the first book list ever posted on Designers & Books—and reflect on Vignelli (1931–2014), who passed away last week, as a lover of books and advocate of “knowledge in support of creativity.”
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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.
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.
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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