Jessica Helfand
Jessica Helfand’s Book List
I mostly read non-fiction, only a fraction of which is design-related. I tend to get more out of reading non-design-related things (as this list will reveal), I think, because the references and the language tend to stretch both my mind and my vocabulary. (I often tell my students that I get more out of a New Yorker profile than any design book, and it’s true.)
Beyond this, I would say that most of what I am drawn to relates—albeit loosely—to people’s lives: biographies, books on psychology and the mind, profiles and diaries and personal narratives. Journals by and about artists are currently at the top of my list, as is anything about madness, from art brut and outsider art to stories about struggle, and because I am now working on a book that involves a mysterious suicide, I find myself drawn lately to the darker side of certain personal stories (Lauren Slater’s Welcome to My Country comes to mind, as does William Styron’s Darkness Visible).
Strange: this makes me sound so serious and misanthropic, which I’m not at all. Then again, I’ve been married for nearly 16 years to a man whose favorite writers are Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka, so is it any wonder?
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Hornstein, a professor of psychology at Mount Holyoke, writes a moving book about people who hear voices and the degree to which they suffer, but her book is much more than this. She’s a gifted writer—keenly insightful and profoundly empathetic—qualities that are perfectly suited for material that she deftly weaves into a fascinating chronicle of silent human struggle. (The book’s title comes from an asylum-bound Victorian seamstress who was so traumatized—literally rendered speechless—by her affliction that she sewed a mysterious autobiographical text into the lining of her clothing.)
With exquisite photos by Christopher Payne and a pitch-perfect essay by Oliver Sacks, this is the rare coffee table book that’s worth plunging into, start to finish. Beautifully written, photographed, sequenced, edited, and printed. Without a doubt one of my favorite books.
Linfield’s a fearless writer who looks at visual responses to violence as human responses to violence. She’s also not afraid to take on the heavyweights like Walter Benjamin and Susan Sontag—which I find refreshing.
Truitt was a sculptor and a writer, a gardener and a mother, an artist whose journal reflects the banal bits of Sturm und Drang that plague every working parent in tandem with the persistent philosophical questions that jockey for position for anyone making a life deep in the studio. That she found a way to express these as equal components in her daily life makes for wonderful reading: it’s neither saccharine nor obtuse, but real, and really interesting.
Ten years in the making, and it won a Pulitzer Prize. Easily the best artist’s biography I have ever read, because it’s as much about the man as about the process, and as much about the time in which he lived and struggled as the work he produced during his lifetime. Brilliant.
A seminal book, surprisingly overlooked by contemporary audiences (especially students), that rings true even though it was written in 1969. Particularly interesting to read with regard to current media practices: what would Boorstin have made of reality TV, I wonder. Or Twitter?
An accordion-fold amalgamation of memory and longing, this book was assembled as an elegy to the poet’s brother who died too soon. It’s a perfect example of a book that’s at once emotionally riveting—and visually immersive—in every sense of the word.
Written at a time (1996, after a decade in the making) when “privacy” had nothing to do with Facebook. Colomina is one of those rare theorists who can actually write: she’s architecture’s answer to Isabel Allende—smart, lyrical, insightful.
Malcolm’s investigation of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas is really about the relationship between them, making for a fascinating read. She’s as interested in the idea of what it is to write a biography as she is in reporting on theirs—a move that’s at once self-effacing and deeply revealing, offering a kind of transparency that’s rarely evident in investigative journalism.
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.
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.
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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