Abbott Miller’s Book List
For Designers & Books I decided to focus on books that were influential on me as a student: as I get older, I realize that they continue to influence the way I think about art, architecture, and design.
Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History
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A fantastic, concise cultural history that situates the emergence of German modernism. Good maps, timelines, and layout: doles out nice illustrations along the way.
This book initiated my own research into the Bauhaus and set off a long engagement with modernist ideas and contradictions.
Brisk survey of the cultural setting in which Viennese modernism took hold: everything about this book comes to life: architecture, city planning, psychoanalysis, music, literature, painting. A brilliant model of cultural history.
The author ingeniously distills the history of art into 30 amazing color sets such as “Indian,” or “Italian Renaissance,” and provides a one-page narrative for each. The “system” is so disarmingly broad and intuitive, but the magic of the book is that the colors the author chooses are mind-blowingly good. Small silk-screen chips show the color in proportionate quantities. Amazing. If you see this book at any price, buy it. (She did another volume, c. 1948, called Modern Color Guide, which takes on specific and inventive schemes for contemporary interiors.)
A book that opened hundreds of doors to reading design, art, music, and film with the eye of an anthropologist and an art critic. Barthes infused everything else I wrote and thought about afterward.
Essays on the history of modernism and photography that shaped much of my thinking about art, design, and theory. Krauss was an incredible teacher but an even better writer—incredibly sophisticated, cerebral, stylish, and original. This book was foundational for me.
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.
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.
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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