Chosen Books

Invited designers and commentators have chosen these as the books that inspire them and that have shaped their worldview or their ideas about design.

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2000 books

A Woman in Berlin Marta Hillers On Inga Sempé’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Woman in the Dunes Kobo Abe On Antoine Predock’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Woman’s World: A Novel Graham Rawle On Warren Lehrer’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000 Pat Kirkham, ed. On Susan Weber’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Women Then: Photographs 1954–1969 Julia Morton et al. On Anna Sui’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Wonder Bread & Ecstasy: The Life and Death of Joey Stefano Charles Isherwood On Jonathan Adler’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys Nathaniel Hawthorne On Dominique Browning’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Roald Dahl On Mark Fox’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Wooden Houses Makoto Suzuki et al. On Michael Maharam’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Word and Image Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA) On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Word and Image: Posters from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art Alan M. Fern On Paula Scher’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Walter Benjamin On Elizabeth Diller’s Book List On Ricardo Scofidio’s Book List On Cino Zucchi’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Work of Hipgnosis Storm Thorgerson On Carin Goldberg’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The World as Design Otl Aicher On Sam Hecht’s Book List On Jeffrey Bernett’s Book List On Fritz Frenkler’s Book List Add to My Reading List	World Champion Openings Eric Schiller On George Lois’s Book List Add to My Reading List	World Dress Fashion in Detail Rosemary Crill et al. On Claire Wilcox’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas Friedman On Stefano Giovannoni’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The World Must Change: Graphic Design and Idealism Leonie Ten Duis et al. On Rick Poynor’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The World of Gloria Vanderbilt Wendy Goodman et al. On list of Books by Wendy Goodman Add to My Reading List	The World of M. C. Escher M. C. Escher et al. On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A World Without Time Palle Yourgrau On Jean-Marie Massaud’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The World Without Us Alan Weisman On Ken Carbone’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Worlds in Collision Immanuel Velikovsky On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List Add to My Reading List	The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion On Tod Williams’s Book List Add to My Reading List
The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood On Alan Balfour’s Book List Add to My Reading List	A Year with Swollen Appendices Brian Eno On Stefan Sagmeister’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Yohji Yamamoto: Talking to Myself Carla Sozzani, ed. On Akiko Fukai’s Book List Add to My Reading List	You Are Here Katherine Harmon On Kit Hinrichs’s Book List Add to My Reading List	You Are Not a Gadget Jaron Lanier On Christian Wassmann’s Book List On Mark Fox’s Book List Add to My Reading List	You Can’t Go Home Again Thomas Wolfe On Eric Owen Moss’s Book List On Tom Geismar’s Book List Add to My Reading List	You Have to Pay for the Public Life Charles, W. Moore et al. On Paul Goldberger’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Young Men and Fire Norman Maclean On Jaquelin Robertson’s Book List Add to My Reading List
Your Private Sky: R. Buckminster Fuller Claude Lichtenstein et al. On Christian Wassmann’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Yves Saint Laurent Yves Saint On Guo Pei’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Yves Saint Laurent: A Biography Alice Rawsthorn On Valerie Steele’s Book List On list of Books by Alice Rawsthorn Add to My Reading List	Zandra Rhodes Amy de la Haye On Anna Sui’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig On Norman Foster’s Book List On Antoine Predock’s Book List On Tom Kundig’s Book List On Craig Hodgetts’s Book List On Ian Ritchie’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Zero History William Gibson On Cynthia Rowley’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea Charles Seife On Dan Formosa’s Book List Add to My Reading List	Zone 1/2 Michel Feher et al. On Terence Riley’s Book List On Neil Denari’s Book List On Greg Lynn’s Book List Add to My Reading List

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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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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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.”

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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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