Five Books Every Designer Should Own

At my home we have begun installing hard wood floors in our living room. The first part of this project, or any project for that matter, is the prep work. For this particular project we have to move things, tear out carpet and so on. During this process,we’ve boxed up most of the sundry flotsam and jetsam of modern life, i.e. furniture, electronics, books and Tiki mugs. The biggest problem has been the boxing and storing of our books, not because it is hard, but because every time I pull a book off the shelf I want to start reading it.

I realized there were some books that I just couldn’t store, even for a few weeks. These books I reference frequently, and it just doesn’t seem right to hide them away like an embarrassing relative. The following books I have found immensely helpful, interesting and thought provoking; they are books that every designer should have in their libraries.

1. A History of Graphic Design by Philip B. Meggs

It is often said that if you don’t know where you’ve come from you don’t know were you are going. There is no finer book on the history of graphic design than late Philip B. Meggs’ magnum opus A History of Graphic Design. It is exhaustive and authoritatively details the history of Graphic Design from the scratchings of prehistoric petraglyps to the digital revolution. The book is curently in it’s fourth edition and was recently revamped and updated by the capable hands of Alston Purvis. The New York Times is right on the money when they called it, “A significant attempt at a comprehensive history of graphic design…it will be an eye-opener not only for general readers, but for designers who have been unaware of their legacy.”

2. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

As much a manifesto for beautiful typography as a handbook of best practices; Bringhurst’s book is arguably the most influential book on typography in the last 30 years. It is exhaustive, dense and a must read for anyone with an interest in typography and graphic design.

3. Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design by Steven Heller and Teresa Fernades
It is really hard to pick only one book for this list from Steven Heller, the supreme living critic, proponent and cataloger of Graphic Design. This entire list could just as easily been nothing but his books. But proper decorum must prevail so I’ll include this book because it is definitely a must read for any level of designer. It is simply the best road map for navigating of the numerous career paths in the Graphic Design business.

4. Design Basic Index by Jim Krause
Can’t afford art school? Need a refresher course on the basics of design? Need to explain to your mother what Graphic Designers do?

Look no further than Jim Krause’s great book. This beautiful book copiously explains the principles and best practices of design. As an added bonus the book is full of exercises that give readers hands on experience in the basics of design.

5. The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd
A funny and thought provoking fictional look into the world of art school in the late 1950’s. Chip Kidd is a masterful book jacket designer who is responsible for some of the most iconic book jackets in the last 20 years. In The Cheese Monkeys, his first novel, he proves in he can fill a book with as memorable literary images as memorable graphic images on the covers. For designers, the book is  a  must read if for nothing else than the lectures in design by Winter Sorbeck, who inspires and terrorizes his acolytes with his philosophy of Graphic Design. My favorite little design nugget (of which there are tons in the book):

A bazillion years ago, some poor son of a bitch Cro-Magnon scratched a drawing of a buffalo on to the wall of his cave. He didn’t do it because his muse had called to him, or to explore the texture of bauxite, or to start the neoprimitive-expressionist movment. He did it because he killed a goddamn buffalo and he wanted someone else to know about it, after he was gone. He had a specific, definable purpose for making a piece of visual information. The first one.”

This is in no way a definitive list of course. What are some design books you’d recommend to clutter up fellow designer’s night stands?

Chip Kidd Interviews Neil Gaiman!

Be still my beating geeky heart! Look what I found! One of my favorite graphic designers interviewing one of my favorite authors! Don’t call me for about an hour and a half, I’ll be busy!

More Cool Chip Kidd Videos

Another cool video from Chip Kidd waxing on design and his life.

A Funny Chip Kidd Video

I knew Chip Kidd was a great designer and writer, however I was pleasantly amused to find out that he is also a very accomplished, if surreal impressionist. This is a really funny take on the difference between form and content, and how playing with one effects the other. Which is an important theme of his second novel The Learners.

More about Chip Kidd

Design Something Everyday 15/365

I found a great article in Esquire wherein book jacket designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd discusses the thinking and methods that underlie some of his recent work. One typography trick  that is particularly useful is how he created the distressed text for his cover of Cormack McCarthy’s The Road:

The font is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You typeset text in a regular font, I think this was Rotis, and then you blow it up really big on a Xerox machine and then you shrink it down really small. The trick is to see just how much you can distress it and keep it readable. It’s gotten harder to do because Xerox machines are so much better, but if you’ve got a wonderfully shitty machine it will look all corroded and gummy and yucky. It takes a bit of playing around, but it’s really not that hard.

With that tip as inspiration I used the same technique to make these little design posters. The typeface is Rockwell Bold and each letter was blown up 1600% on a Toshiba photocopier, before being digitally reduced. The Toshiba was too new to give the type a truly wonderfully gummy yucky look, but it was a good exercise. Even with all of our digital tricks, it is pretty fun to get in there with some old school techniques.

Design Something Everyday 13/365

I was at the park with my kids playing in the sand box and I recalled this quote from Chip Kidd’s wonderful novel The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters: “Design is purposeful planning… Graphic design is the form those plans will take.” Between the juice boxes and pushing kids on the swing I tried to represent that with sand, sticks and pebbles.

Anyone who is interested in literature or good storytelling would like The Cheese Monkey’s, but for designers, I highly recommend Kidd’s book for many reasons, first it is a gripping tale of Happy (the protagonist) discovering himself and the world he inhabits. Second, the host of characters that Kidd creates are unforgettable, especially Himillsy Dodd and Winter Sorbeck. Finally, the book is full of great nuggets about graphic design. That last point is something designers should enjoy, or at least provoke some food for thought. It isn’t often that graphic design gets so eloquently discussed, defended and criticized in any form, let alone a novel. Having the history, purpose and practice of graphic design examined in fiction is refreshing.

Links:

• The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
• The Learners by Chip Kidd (his follow up novel, continuing the adventures of Happy)
• Good is Dead, Chip Kidd’s Blog

Here are some great interviews/talks by and with Chip Kidd: