Tom Kelley
Tom Kelley’s Book List
I have always been in love with books, and currently have more than a thousand at home, with bookshelves in nearly every room of the house (including the kitchen). It was fun—but very challenging—to narrow the field to a manageable list of the most relevant or influential. All the books on my “favorites” list are about inspiring creative work, but only one actually has the word “design” in the title.
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Emily Pilloton is my design hero. Thirty years from now, people will be calling her a national treasure, and they will point to this book as an early milestone in her journey. The book’s collection of 100 social-innovation/design projects was just the jumping off point for Emily’s subsequent ventures: a cross-country Design Revolution Road Show, a hands-on design thinking curriculum for high school kids, a design-and-build summer camp for tween girls, and a documentary film on the power of design thinking. It’s not just a book. It’s the harbinger of a bright future.
What Sir Ken Robinson calls “The Element” is something we all might hope to find: a vocation or a craft so engaging that it fuels our passions, so intrinsically rewarding that it blurs the line between work and play. He puts into words what many of us have long felt about the deep satisfaction that comes from living a creative life.
Storytelling is an essential tool for all creative endeavors, and the Heath brothers show us how it’s done. I have read a lot (and written a bit) on the craft of storytelling, and this is the best book I have seen on how to make your ideas come alive. Chip and Dan explore the essential ingredients of urban myths that seem to instantly go viral. Not stopping there, they show how to blend those ingredients into our own stories to make them “stickier.”
Psychologist Carol Dweck makes a compelling case for a simple but potentially life-changing idea: that neither your skills nor your talent nor even your intelligence are set in stone. Dweck says that once you embrace a “growth mindset” you fundamentally believe that your fullest abilities are “unknown and unknowable.” I have looked at the world differently since meeting Carol Dweck and reading her book.
Pressfield never suggests that creative work will be easy. In fact, he explains why it is hard. And then he declares war on the inertia, procrastination, self-doubt, and what he calls “Resistance” that stands between us and our creative best. I know from first-hand experience that recognizing Resistance can help you beat it—at least some of the time.
Examining the sweep of human history, the ever-brilliant Steven Johnson identifies the fundamental principles of innovation and spells them out in this insightful book. He demonstrates how one idea builds on another, sparking creative breakthroughs all the way from the printing press to the World Wide Web. By explaining the complex interactions that nurtured innovations of the past, Johnson helps point us toward the future.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: 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.
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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