Jeffrey Bernett
Jeffrey Bernett’s Book List
School only teaches you so much, so the two other things I’ve held to are: surround yourself and work with the brightest people you can, and read broadly. Reading, isn’t only a quest to gain knowledge, but it’s actually a very thought-provoking journey in its own right, and it’s surprising, when provoked provocatively, where the mind goes off to along the way.
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Ralph is a bit like Thomas Friedman, and his book By Design—covering architecture, industrial design, fashion design, graphic design, and the design of business and social situations—shows how design affects many of our most significant human activities.
Eliot Noyes was an architect who began his career working in the office of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. He went on to become the first Director of the Industrial Design department at MoMA in the 1940s. From the late 1950s on he was Consulting Director of Design for IBM (and was, in fact, responsible for turning International Business Machines into IBM), Mobil Oil, Westinghouse, and Cummins Engine Company, bringing about a change in the way that these corporations, and others that followed, were to think about design and its impact on business. Noyes was one of the first true corporate design consultants and “strategists”—a leader, pioneer, and visionary.
In a world that seems to accept “good enough” and with the U.S. and the world facing some dynamic changes, the U.S.—and its leading corporations—need to decide if we are again going to be world leaders in a broad section of industries going forward, and if so, what are the values and principles that are going to get us there. To this end, Collins and his researchers went on a broad and in-depth journey of 1,400-plus companies to find out what characteristics and values are common to, and what are the key attributes found in “great” companies.
Paul Arden was a top ad man and this is his witty and insightful little book on how to succeed in the world—“a pocket bible for the talented and timid to make the unthinkable thinkable.”
This is a David and Goliath story of baseball and sports. Moneyball is about Billy Beane and the Oakland A's, whose courage and quest for the secret of success in baseball form a tale of the search for new knowledge bucking the instincts and trends of the past—a great story about the little guy and underdog who was willing to discard old wisdom in a quest for victory.
Gladwell’s book is about what factors make high achievers the best and the brightest, and the most successful and unique. An insightful and provocative look at the Rubik’s Cube of life—chance, luck, dedication, and determination.
John Heskett wants to transform the way we think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives—from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal, and the car we drive to work in, to the medical equipment used to save lives. Design combines “need” and “desire” in the form of a practical object that can also reflect the user’s identity and aspirations through its form and decoration.
Otl Aicher founded the Ulm School of Design, which became Germany’s leading educational center for design during the 1950s and 1960s. Aicher was heavily involved in corporate branding for a number of important companies of the era, including designing the logo for German airline Lufthansa, and is probably best known for being the lead designer for the 1972 Munich Olympics. A complete and broad thinker of design.
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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