Richard Sachs
Richard Sachs’s Book List
These are my books. I’ve had some for a very long time; others are recent acquisitions. Quite a few were gifted to me by their authors. I don’t really have any particular favorites from the pile, but the books about D’Aquisto and Nakashima are the ones I've turned to more often, and over a longer time, than any of the others.
The thread that runs through most of the books shown here is one of focus. They’re about someone, or a staff of someones, or a family business with a long line of someones, all paying attention to detail. All the someones have their heads down trying to understand and tame the material, while simultaneously have their heads up thinking about ways to drive their past into a future. Many of the items written about here may seem like vestiges from another era, but I view them more as designs, crafted goods, and business models that are timeless. In the case of the titles that are not about making things, the same is true—the stories and their authors are beautiful to me.
I haven’t read any of the books on my list. But I have opened them hundreds, maybe thousands of times looking for inspiration or an answer. Each is like a friend, or a therapist, or even just good medicine that I turned to when I needed direction. And I think that fact is reflected in the work I do at my bench. It’s been said that I have built the same bicycle for decades, inferring that I am stuck in time. I don’t think I have ever built the same bicycle twice. I am not sure I’d ever want to build the same bicycle twice.
The pages in these books have been my safe haven. With an attention span that measures on the far left hand side of the meter, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the tools to read (read, as in finish) any of them. I’d love to know what I am missing. In the meantime, I’ll take my small doses since they have served me well. And every time I come back for visit, the results are different. No two alike.
Nonfiction, Product/Industrial Design
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One of my earliest inspirations was Jimmy D’Aquisto. I saw a film about his work on PBS that aired from a local affiliate. More than any other maker whose works I’ve become aware of, I always come back to a fantasy that includes making my bicycles with the skill and humility with which D’Aquisto made his guitars. This book chronicles the lives of Jimmy and his mentor, John D’Angelico.
One of those titles I bought because of the subject. The contents are too cerebral for me but the story line remains the same: there are some geniuses out there, and there’s a reason folks line up at their doors.
This is a very heavy and expensive book that was produced in conjunction with an exhibition called “Archtop Guitars: The Journey from Cremona to New York.” For once, I wanted words, but this one is all about images. It’s too late to ask for a refund!
A gift from the author. Allen St. John spends a year and then some watching famed guitar maker Wayne Henderson build a guitar for Eric Clapton. As with some of the other titles, I find many parallels with Henderson’s life, his daily interaction with his material, and how it all fits into the commercial world we inhabit.
This is a book produced in Japan and shows the daily lives of two great watchmakers, Daniel Roth and Philippe Dufour. As is the case with other titles listed here, I own this book for the inspiration I get when I see these men at work, at their respective benches, making art that also tells us time.
I met Michael Maharam in 2009 when his firm underwrote an exhibition I was part of at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. From the first e-mail a year prior to the show’s opening, I felt a kindred spirit in this man. We’ve been friends ever since. When the book came out, I had to own it. It’s like having Michael on my coffee table, but I can pick him up and put him down at my whim!
This is a book about the origins and history of James Purdey & Sons, a famed family of gunsmiths. I am fascinated by these products, their market, and how—in my era—items such as these comprise the luxury brands that command beyond-high prices and in whose queues folks wait forever before taking delivery. Now that’s a gig.
I bought this book in the late 1980s when it first was published. I wanted more from my trade, and from the time spent at the bench, and found bicycles dull. When I started to cast a net out to try to catch inspiration—this book fell right in my lap, and has remained there ever since. Similar to what I write about Acquired of the Angels, the more I learned about Nakashima, the harder I tried to channel it into the work I was doing with metal.
A pal and industry colleague of mine, Grant Peterson, gave me this book 20 years ago. We were going through periods of introspection, each looking for more in our trade than the trade itself offered back. If I recall, Grant thought a book like this one could strengthen our resolve, and we’d both be better people and craftsmen for having read it.
It might be unfair to compare craftsmen at all, much less folks whose eras never overlapped. But Samuel Zygmuntowicz, in this book, is written about as the incarnate of the renowned violin makers of Cremona many centuries ago. It’s refreshing (to me) to read the maker’s thoughts about his studio work, minus all the lore that’s typically attached to a legend who has long since passed. The writer and the violin maker both talk about the craft and the business in very pragmatic terms. Of all my titles, I have spent the most time with this one, hoping to find parallels with the trade I am part of.
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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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.
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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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