Rudy VanderLans’s Book List
The books I’ve listed here came to mind immediately upon receipt of the invitation. They have inspired my design, photography, and editing work, and I know that I’ve learned from them and often refer back to them. What exactly I’ve learned from them is difficult to determine. But my work has improved over the years—at the very least it has grown more mature—and that didn’t happen all by itself. I blame that on the books I’ve read, particularly the ones listed here.
Also, I love this website. Just the fact that anybody would care to make such a big deal about books and about what designers read gives me hope. It feels good to know that people are still interested in books, particularly printed books. And I love it when a new technology is used to celebrate an old one.
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I'm unsure what I like more about this little book: the story, or the way the story is told. The book is a collage of various writing forms including memoir, verse, interview, poetry, newspaper account, dime store novel, even a sprinkling of images. It is a postmodern portrait of Billy the Kid and the West. It is like no other book on the topic. It opened my eyes to new possibilities of how to tell a story.
The idea of blending design into the environment by incorporating common, everyday forms, as opposed to applying a rigid, dogmatic language, was liberating for me.
This is the first design book I purchased shortly after I started design school. I was supposed to read Tschichold, Ruder, Hofmann, and all the other reductionists, which I did, eventually. But Glaser made graphic design look alive, vibrant, and human. The work seemed effortless, yet it was impossible to emulate. I know, because I tried.
Not much of a book in the traditional sense of the word, but inspirational for expanding the notion of what a book can be.
I figured that if I have read a book three times from cover to cover, it would be unfair not to list it here. On The Road painted a picture of the soul of America that I fell in love with.
This is by far the most used book in my library. It's been broken in like an old baseball glove, and it has all the wear and tear to show for it. I simply love to pull this book from its shelf, hold it in my hand, and flip through its pages. And each time I open it, I learn something new. It's an indispensable tool for design, writing, editing, and punctuation.
Just as quiet and unassuming as his photographs, Robert Adams’s writing is an exercise in restraint—clear and concise, yet nuanced and complex. Here’s a taste: “At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect—a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known.”
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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