Designers & Books Blog

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858 blog entries

Interviews

Microinteractions: A Conversation with Dan Saffer of Smart Design

By Steve Kroeter April 30, 2014

Designers & Books talks with Dan Saffer, a Creative Director at Smart Design and author of four books on design, including, most recently, Microinteractions: Designing with Details, on importance of designing the “small stuff” from phone settings to smoke detector alarms. More...

Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview

Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: April 30

April 30, 2014

In April we featured book lists from product designers Dan Formosa (Smart Design) and Fiona Raby (Dunne & Raby), a round-up celebrating National Poetry Month in the U.S., plus books dedicated to the design of libraries, car design, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and more. We also had a conversation with Dan Saffer (Smart Design) about his new book, Microinteractions: Designing with Details. More...

Daily Features

Rizzoli Bookstore Announces Special Sale on May 1 and 2 Open to the Designers & Books Community

By The Editors April 29, 2014

With its 57th Street location now closed, Rizzoli Bookstore offers one last chance on May 1 and 2 to visit its fabled interior and purchase art and design books at 50% discounts. More...

Quote of the Day: Phil Patton & The Afterlife of Emerson Tang

By Phil Patton April 23, 2014

Ultimately, the book is a story about hope and regret, grief, and self-expression, wrapped around an old-fashioned mystery. Champa writes. “What is a vehicle but a private capsule? One in which the mundane errands and memorable adventures of a life are accomplished. By some alchemy, through this constant association, a mingling, a transmutation, can occur.”

Themed Book Lists

30 Books on Car Design

April 23, 2014

Here are 30 (updated August 19, 2014) books on the design of cars and car culture (its past and its future)—including two novels—from our contributors. More...

Book List of the Week

Book List of the Week: Dan Formosa

By Steve Kroeter April 21, 2014

A book list from Dan Formosa, who in 1981 helped form Smart Design, a group based on the idea that design is first and foremost about people. His work on OXO Good Grips kitchen tools became a symbol of products designed to work for every user. The interface he created for XM/Sirius established the standard for satellite radio in the U.S. More...

Quote of the Day: Dan Formosa & Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire

By Dan Formosa April 21, 2014

An insightful look into creativity both within and outside the corporation. I’ve referred many people to it.

Quote of the Day: Stanley Abercrombie & The Library

By Stanley Abercrombie April 16, 2014

In his preface the author asks “[W]ill this study serve merely as a memorial to a defunct building type?” The book’s final words answer that “… humankind has created an extraordinary variety of spaces in which to read, to think, to dream and to celebrate knowledge. As long as humankind continues to value these activities, it will continue to build places to house them. Whether they will involve books or will still be called libraries, only time will tell.” If indeed what we now know as the library disappears, this book will be the perfect reminder of all that we will have lost.

Themed Book Lists

6 Books About Libraries

April 16, 2014

National (U.S.) Library Week is this week: April 13–19, 2014. Here are six books about libraries and library design from our contributors. More...

Quote of the Day: Margie Ruddick & Beyond the Pawpaw Trees

By Margie Ruddick April 14, 2014

I must have read this book several hundred times as a child—a pure escape from, and then restoration to, urban life; a mix of love and loss and landscape.

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.

Order the book.

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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