Books for Creatives

  1. Fashioning Design - Lee Broom

    Fashioning Design: Lee Broom

    Lee Broom's furniture, lighting, and accessory design, some of which are held in the permanent collections of cultural institutions in London and New York, are at once familiar and yet feel new - a signature skill of reinterpretation and a mix of classicism and modernity. This book explores the many influences and ideas behind Broom's portfolio of more than 100 products and highlights the way he showcases his work through original and engaging installations, exhibitions, and films.

    Category Industrial Design Books

  2. Graphic Design Is (...) Not Innocent

    Graphic Design Is (...) Not Innocent

    Graphic Design Is (...) Not Innocent questions ingrained approaches, values and assumptions of graphic design in globalized societies. The publication aims to initiate a dialogue between designers, scholars, critics and commissioners, who investigate the responsibilities, potentials, politics, limits and risks of designing visual communication. The book combines case studies and academic reflections, trying to sketch a common ground for basic research into the parameters and value systems of graphic design. It is a road trip between various possible conceptual challenges and praxis. It is a temporal inventory, without the claim of completeness. It is a question mark, as well as an exclamation mark. And it wants to stimulate critical thinking in graphic design.

    Category Graphic Design Books

  3. Just Enough Design

    Just Enough Design

    The Japanese phrase hodo-hodo originates in ancient times. When contemporary designer Taku Satoh applies it to his work, it means 'just enough.' Hodo-hodo design deliberately holds back, leaving room for individuals to engage with objects according to their unique sensibilities. In his new book 'Just Enough Design,' Taku Satoh explains his design philosophy through tangible examples. By urging readers to appreciate everyday objects and spaces, he delivers a message rooted in the past yet perfectly suited to our times. He shows how 'just enough' offers an alternative way for us to engage with our possessions, our environment, our history, and each other.

    Category Design Books

  4. Light Space Life - Houses by SAOTA

    Light Space Life: Houses by SAOTA

    Light Space Life is the first monograph from internationally recognized South African architecture studio SAOTA, known for crafting exceptional modern buildings that forge powerful connections to their extraordinary settings. Presenting memorable and distinctive residences selected from its wide-ranging global output, the book celebrates thirty-five years of innovative residential design from Lagos to Los Angeles, including houses from the dramatic South African coast where it all began.

    Category Architecture Books

  5. Yves Béhar - Designing Ideas

    Yves Béhar: Designing Ideas

    From the world's first robotic bassinet (Snoo) to laptops for children in developing countries, 'powered clothing' for aging populations, a rapidly deployable ventilator (VOX) designed in response to COVID, and more, Yves has produced some of the most groundbreaking designs of the past two decades. Featuring over sixty projects, the book presents an opportunity for Yves to reflect on the past 20 years and speak to how design can provide solutions to the critical issues of today, such as the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, and accessible healthcare.

    Category Industrial Design Books

  6. CAPS LOCK

    CAPS LOCK

    Capitalism could not exist without the coins, notes, documents, graphics, interfaces, branding and advertisements; artifacts that have been (partly) created by graphic designers. Even anti-consumerist strategies such as social design and speculative design are being appropriated within capitalist societies to serve economic growth. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and striking visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are inextricably linked. The book contains many case studies of designed objects related to capitalist societies and cultures, and also examines how the education and professional practice of designers supports the market economy and how design practice is caught within that very system.

    Category Graphic Design Books

  7. Gesture and Response - 25 Buildings by William Pedersen of KPF Architects

    Gesture and Response: 25 Buildings by William Pedersen of KPF Architects

    William Pedersen selected 25 buildings as emblematic of his architectural aspirations, contextual concerns, and material manifestations. He shows how monumental buildings made from hard glass, stone, and steel can exist at a gentle human scale. After taking the reader on a chronological tour of 24 towering corporate headquarters, contextual educational facilities, and community-oriented government projects, Pedersen takes us home - literally - to examine his own house on Shelter Island that was 20 years in the making.

    Category Architecture Books

  8. How Design Makes Us Think - And Feel and Do Things

    How Design Makes Us Think: And Feel and Do Things

    From posters to cars, design is everywhere. While we often discuss the aesthetics of design, we don't always dig deeper to unearth the ways design can overtly, and covertly, convince us of a certain way of thinking. How Design Makes Us Think collects hundreds of examples across graphic design, product design, industrial design, and architecture to illustrate how design can inspire, provoke, amuse, anger, or reassure us.

    Category Design Books

  9. Intercultural Design Basics

    Intercultural Design Basics

    Intercultural Design Basics presents an intercultural and innovative approach to design education. The book gives intercultural insights when discussing the basic principles of design, typography and color theory. It incorporates contrasting ideas on design and various design teaching methods. Through examples of intercultural design workshops, it inspires collaboration with international teams. Practical methods used in these international perspectives encourage the development of cultural and social awareness, inspire different design styles helping you perceive cultural diversity.

    Category Design Books

  10. Design Things That Make Sense

    Design Things That Make Sense

    Design Things That Make Sense is the first and complete guide to designing technology-based products and services. Through case studies, practical insights, examples, tips, and tools, readers will learn how to adopt a user-centered mindset and apply technologies in a meaningful way. The book contains over 50 design strategies to design strong benefits and minimize the resistance people might have against new technologies.

    Category Design Books

  11. Design Innovation and Integration

    Design Innovation and Integration

    Design Innovation and Integration is a guidebook for the industry leaders of tomorrow. This book provides a holistic understanding of the approaches, practices and tools required to go beyond creative ideas to integrating design strategically within an organization.

    Category Design Books

  12. My Icon Library

    My Icon Library

    My Icon Library features an essential collection of impactful images that will empower you to embark on your own journey of visual thinking and storytelling. The collection consists of the most common, interesting, weird and wonderful concepts created during the author's visual thinking workshops.

    Category Interface Design Books

  13. Visual Discoveries - A Collection of Sections

    Visual Discoveries: A Collection of Sections

    Visual Discoveries: A Collection of Sections is an image-forward book that is devoted to showcasing notable section drawings throughout history and demonstrating that the section drawing, while having roots in architecture, has spread to many other professions and disciplines. These professions include medicine, transportation, product design, geology, and landscape architecture.

    Category Design Books

  14. Design and Culture - A Transdisciplinary History

    Design and Culture: A Transdisciplinary History

    Design and Culture: A Transdisciplinary History offers an inclusive overview that crosses disciplinary boundaries and helps define the next phase of global design practice. This book examines the interaction of design with advances in technology, developments in science, and changing cultural attitudes. It looks to the past to prepare for the future and is the first book to offer an innovative transdisciplinary design history that integrates multidisciplinary sources of knowledge into a mindful whole.

    Category Design Books

  15. The Business of Design - Balancing Creativity and Profitability

    The Business of Design: Balancing Creativity and Profitability

    The Business of Design debunks the myth that business sense and creative talent are mutually exclusive, showing design professionals that they can pursue their passion and turn a profit. The book covers all aspects of running a successful design business, including human resources, client management, product development, marketing, and licensing.

    Category Design Books

  16. Design Anthropology in Context

    Design Anthropology in Context

    This book explores the broad territory of design anthropology, covering key approaches, ways of working and areas of debate and tension. It understands design as fundamentally human-centered and argues for design anthropology based primarily on collaboration and communication. Adam Drazin suggests the most important collaborative knowledge which design anthropology develops is heuristic, emerging as engagements between fieldwork sites and design studios. The chapters draw on material culture literature and include a wide range of examples of different projects and outputs. Highlighting the importance of design as a topic in the study of contemporary culture, this is valuable reading for students and scholars of anthropology and design as well as practitioners.

    Category Design Books

  17. Reading Graphic Design History - Image, Text, and Context

    Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context

    Reading Graphic Design History 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 Raizman's innovative approach intentionally challenges the canon of graphic design history and various traditional understandings of graphic design. He re-examines 'icons' of graphic design in light of their local contexts, avoiding generalization to explore underlying attitudes about various social issues.

    Category Graphic Design Books

  18. Architecture in the 20th Century

    Architecture in the 20th Century

    The architecture of the 20th century is distinguished by an astonishing diversity. From lofty 'starchitects' to lesser-known names around the world, this chronological overview takes you to the heart of the ideas, trends, and transitions that defined the 1900s. Organized chronologically, the 31 chapters put it all into perspective, illustrated by hundreds of large-format photos as well as a plenitude of drawings and floor plans. The biographical appendix covers all of the century's greatest architects while celebrating today's new talents, and the lavish illustrations include some of the best architectural photography in the modern era.

    Category Architecture Books

  19. Contemporary Houses - 100 Homes Around the World

    Contemporary Houses: 100 Homes Around the World

    This book features 100 of the world's most interesting and pioneering homes designed in the past two decades, featuring a host of talents both new and established, including John Pawson, Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Daniel Libeskind, Alvaro Siza, and Peter Zumthor. Accommodating daily routines of eating, sleeping, and shelter, as well as offering the space for personal experience and relationships, this is architecture at its most elementary and its most intimate.

    Category Architecture Books

  20. Formgiving - An Architectural Future History

    Formgiving: An Architectural Future History

    Formgiving: An Architectural Future History is a visionary attempt to look at the horizon of time. The Danish word for 'design' is 'formgiving,' which literally means to give form to that which has not yet taken shape. In other words, to give form to the future. Architecture plays a special role by proposing spaces for our lives that are fragments of the future in the making. Throughout more than 700 pages, Bjarke Ingels presents his personal selection of projects, including the 12,000-square-meter LEGO House in Denmark, the human-made ecosystems floating on oceans, the redesign of a World War II bunker into a contemplative museum, and the ski slope-infused power plant celebrating Copenhagen's commitment to carbon neutrality.

    Category Architecture Books

  21. Space Framed - Photography, Architecture and the Social Landscape

    Space Framed: Photography, Architecture and the Social Landscape

    Just as architecture seeks to frame and shape human activity in a given setting, photography has recourse to similar devices of framing and 'constructing.' Taking the point of view of the photographer engaging with some aspect of the designed and inhabited environment, this book examines the relationship between architecture and photography. A series of essays focuses on the resonances and relationships which the photographer realizes between the techniques and the products of photography on the one hand, and the characteristics and processes of buildings and terrains on the other. The book reveals the resonances and rhymes between the two as they occur at different scales, at different times, and in different settings.

    Category Photography Books

  22. Design Like You Give a Damn 2 - Building Change from the Ground Up

    Design Like You Give a Damn 2: Building Change from the Ground Up

    Design Like You Give a Damn 2 is an indispensable handbook for anyone committed to building a more sustainable future. Following the success of their first book, Architecture for Humanity brings readers the next edition, with more than 100 projects from around the world. Packed with practical and ingenious design solutions, this book addresses the need for basic shelter, housing, education, health care, clean water, and renewable energy.

    Category Architecture Books

  23. Architects After Architecture - Alternative Pathways for Practice

    Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice

    Architects After Architecture reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of designing buildings. In this volume, we meet forty practitioners through profiles, case studies, and interviews, who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways to tackle the climate crisis, work with refugees, advocate for diversity, start tech companies, become leading museum curators, tackle homelessness, draft public policy, become developers, design videogames, shape public discourse, and much more. Together, they describe a future of architecture that is diverse and engaged, expanding the limits of the discipline, and offering new paths forward in times of crisis.

    Category Architecture Books

  24. The Walt Disney Film Archives

    The Walt Disney Film Archives

    The Walt Disney Film Archives gathers hundreds of images as well as essays by Disney experts, taking readers to the beating heart of the studio's 'Golden Age of Animation.' It traces Disney's complete animation journey from the silent film era, through his first full-length feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940), right up to his last masterpieces Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966) and The Jungle Book (1967).

    Category Animation Books

  25. User Friendly - How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

    User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

    In User Friendly, Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: the assumption that machines should anticipate what we need. Spanning over a century of sweeping changes, from women's rights to the Great Depression to World War II to the rise of the digital era, this book unpacks the ways in which the world has been - and continues to be - remade according to the principles of the once-obscure discipline of user-experience design.

    Category Design Books

  26. Dot Line Shape - The Basic Elements of Design and Illustration

    Dot Line Shape: The Basic Elements of Design and Illustration

    Going back to basics, Dot Line Shape is a comprehensive collection of projects that manifest the three elements in inspiring and ingenious ways to bring unique creative visions to life. No matter how trends or platforms change over time, they serve as timeless components that provide designers and artists around the world with infinite means of expression to make a lasting impact.

    Category Design Books

  27. Critical Fabulations - Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design

    Critical Fabulations: Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design

    Critical Fabulations is a proposal to redefine design in a way that not only challenges the field's dominant paradigms but also changes the practice of design itself. In this book, Daniela Rosner proposes redefining design as investigative and activist, personal and culturally situated, responsive and responsible. Challenging the field's dominant paradigms and reinterpreting its history, Rosner wants to change the way we historicize the practice, reworking it from the inside. Focusing on the development of computational systems, she takes on powerful narratives of innovation and technology shaped by the professional expertise that has become integral to the field's mounting status within the new industrial economy.

    Category Design Books

  28. The V&A Book of Color in Design

    The V&A Book of Color in Design

    The V&A Book of Color in Design is a celebration and exploration of color, as revealed through objects in the world-class collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Structured by color, it offers fascinating insights into the choices made by designers and makers from across the world and throughout history. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction that considers the history, symbolism, and use of an individual color. Objects - from items of jewelry, textiles, glassware, and ceramics to furniture and more - are reproduced in a visual selection that explores the varied hues of every color. However different objects within each section may be in their detail and meaning, they are united by their common color, revealing surprising connections between them.

    Category Design Books

  29. The Craft and Science of Game Design

    The Craft and Science of Game Design

    The Craft and Science of Game Design: A Video Game Designer's Manual goes into the nuts and bolts of video game development from the perspective of a veteran designer with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. It covers the psychology and biology of why people play games and goes in depth on the techniques and tricks professional game designers use to be successful in game development.

    Category Game Design Books

  30. Atari Design

    Atari Design

    Drawing from deep archival research and extensive interviews, Atari Design is a rich, historical study of how Atari's industrial and graphic designers contributed to the development of the video game machine.

    Category Industrial Design Books