The Designer's Review of Books — Books for the creative mind.

Just My Type: More Than A Book About Fonts

If every typography book were written like Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (Amazon: US|UK|DE), more people would care about the subject. British author and journalist Simon Garfield’s tone is so accessible, it feels like he lived through 600 years of history and just popped by to talk about it. Font geeks will enjoy [...]

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Dieter Rams Double Review – Less and More & As Little Design As Possible

Double review of Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams and Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Review by Carolina de Bartolo “To design is to think.” —Dieter Rams, Industrial Designer (b. 1932–, Weisbaden, Germany) What can I tell you about Dieter Rams that you don’t already know? Since one of his [...]

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Designers Don’t Have Influences by Austin Howe

I had better start by owning up to not having read Designers Don’t Read by Howe – I had seen lots of press for it but never got round to picking up a copy. So I have come to his second book without reading the first, but Designers Don’t Have Influences (Amazon US|CA|UK|DE) is stand-alone [...]

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White

A small part of the book White is about color: “it is ‘all colors’ and ‘no colors’ at the same time. This identity as a color that can ‘escape color’ makes white very special. If white is not simply a color, mightn’t we be able to understand it as functioning like a design or expressive [...]

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I Heart Design

I Heart Design. No, really I do. I design every day, spend my spare time obsessing about typography, and could never imagine doing anything else. Design holds a near and dear spot in my heart. But this isn’t about me. It’s about a book. I Heart Design by Steven Heller is a collection of, as [...]

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The Elements of Graphic Design, Second Edition

As a design educator I am always looking for new ways to teach the unavoidable “Introduction to Graphic Design” course. I have read and used many textbooks over the years, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It was with the goal of gathering new information in the introduction to graphic design category that I [...]

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Explorations in Typography

Explorations in Typography: Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting by Carolina de Bartolo is a marvelous book that explains some of the most commonly used typesetting devices. The book is comprised of 24 different examples of ways to set the same piece of text, the short essay Type Builds Character by Erik Spiekermann (originally published [...]

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Thinking With Type

I’m not the first one to say this, and I definitely won’t be the last, but the statement is worth repeating. Thinking With Type is a book that should be in the collection of every designer, writer, editor, publisher and typographer. Ellen Lupton’s excellent analysis of thinking with typography is perfect for everyone from the [...]

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Toy Cameras, Creative Photos: High-end Results from 40 Plastic Cameras

I would think that most designers with an eye on the lo-fi will be familiar with the aesthetic of toy cameras. As an arty type with an interest in lo-fi technology and photography I have a couple of toy cameras myself, so when the opportunity came about to review Kevin Meredith’s book on toy cameras, [...]

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Women of Design

Women Of Design: Influence And Inspiration From The Original Trailblazers To The New Groundbreakers is one of four books that have been written by the husband and wife team of Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit. You can find the expanse of their work, which includes many recognizable websites from the design community, their other 3 [...]

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