Book picks similar to
Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams by Klaus Klemp
design
art
biography
product-design
Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
Ken Kocienda - 2018
Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly-respected software engineer who worked in the final years the Steve Jobs era--the Golden Age of Apple.Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple's creative process. For fifteen years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser. His stories explain the symbiotic relationship between software and product development for those who have never dreamed of programming a computer, and reveal what it was like to work on the cutting edge of technology at one of the world's most admired companies.Kocienda shares moments of struggle and success, crisis and collaboration, illuminating each with lessons learned over his Apple career. He introduces the essential elements of innovation--inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste, and empathy--and uses these as a lens through which to understand productive work culture.An insider's tale of creativity and innovation at Apple, Creative Selection shows readers how a small group of people developed an evolutionary design model, and how they used this methodology to make groundbreaking and intuitive software which countless millions use every day.
Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers
Koos Eissen - 2008
It goes without saying that the book is suited for the classroom, but every design studio will also find this manual an asset, because in spite of the ascendancy of the computer, hand-drawn sketches are still a very much used.
Hello World: Where Design Meets Life
Alice Rawsthorn - 2012
When deployed wisely, it can bring us pleasure, choice, strength, decency and much more. But if its power is abused, the outcome can be wasteful, confusing, humiliating, even dangerous. None of us can avoid being affected by design, whether or not we wish to. It is so ubiquitous that it determines how we feel and what we do, often without our noticing.Hello World explores design's influence on our lives. Written by the renowned design critic Alice Rawsthorn and designed by the award-winning book designer Irma Boom, it describes how warlords, scientists, farmers, hackers, activists and designers have used design to different ends throughout history: from the macabre symbol invented by 18th century pirates to terrorise their victims into surrender, to one woman's quest for the best possible prosthetic legs and the evolution of the World Cup ball.At a time when we face colossal changes, unprecedented in their speed, scale and intensity - from the deepening environmental crisis, to giant leaps in science and technology - Hello World explains how design can help us to make sense of them andto turn them to our advantage.
Objects of Desire: Design and Society Since 1750
Adrian Forty - 1986
The argument is illustrated with examples ranging from penknives to computers and from sewing machines to railway carriages. In opening up new ways of appraising the man-made world around us, Objects of Desire is required reading for anyone who has any involvement with design and a revealing document about our society.
Milton Glaser: Graphic Design
Milton Glaser - 1973
Glaser’s work ranges from the psychedelic Bob Dylan poster to book and record covers; from store and restaurant design to toy creations; and magazine formats including New York magazine and logotypes, all of which define the look of our time. Here Glaser undertakes not only a remarkably wide-ranging representation of his oeuvre from the incredibly fertile early years, but, in a new preface, speaks of the influences on his work, the responsibilities of the artist, the hierarchies of the traditional art world, and the role of graphic design in the area of his creative growth. First published in 1973, Milton Glaser: Graphic Design is an extraordinary achievement and indisputably a classic in the field.
Cover
Peter Mendelsund - 2014
Among the many recognizable jackets he has created are those for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; collections of the works of Joyce, Kafka, Dostoevsky, de Beauvoir, and Foucault; the contemporary works of Martin Amis, Tom McCarthy, Ben Marcus, Jo Nesbø, and James Gleick; and many more. All have greatly benefitted from the care and touch Mendelsund gave them.Cover abounds with Mendelsund's completed book jackets along with ephemera from his previously unseen creative method, including jacket sketches, interior art and editorial illustrations, and scores of rejected drafts. These images are punctuated by Mendelsund's reflections on his work and his process, as well as by texts from writers with whom he has worked and designed for.Cover is a compendium of beautiful design and a beautiful design object itself; a profile and celebration of one of the publishing world's most talented and prolific contemporary creators, and a brilliant showcase of his deft touch for balanced and innovative design.
Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life (Business Books, Graphic Design Books, Books on Success)
James Victore - 2019
His ideas on optimizing your creativity, doing wow work, and building a life that inspires will devastate your limits. And show you how to win. Read this book fast." —Robin Sharma, bestselling author of The Monk Who Sold His FerrariBegin before you're ready and other lessons on living a happy and creative life: Renowned designer and professional hell-raiser James Victore wants to drag you off your couch and throw you headfirst into a life of bold creativity. In Feck Perfuction, Victore will guide you through all the twists, trials, and triumphs of starting your creative career, from finding your voice to picking the right moment to start a project (hint: It's now). Bring your biggest, craziest, most revolutionary ideas, and he will give you the kick in the pants you need to make them real.Filled with humor and stern advice, Feck Perfuction provides "dangerous ideas" for unearthing your authentic self, including "the things that made you weird as a kid make you great today," "the struggle is everything," and many more.No matter what industry or medium you work in, this book will help you live, work, and create freely and fearlessly.James Victore is an award-winning designer for bold believers, an advocate for creativity, a sought after teacher and speaker, and an artist whose work is exhibited around the globe.Fans of Austin Kleon's Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad and Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative will love James Victore's inspiring book on embracing authenticity and unleashing your creative self. Begin before you're ready, live dangerously, take a risk, and other lessons on living a purpose-driven lifeA perfect coffee table or bar top conversation-starting bookMakes a great gift for a new graduate or someone embarking on a personal or professional adventure
Don't Get a Job… Make a Job: How to Make it as a Creative Gradute (in the fields of Design, Fashion, Architecture, Advertising and more)
Gem Barton - 2016
But imagine for one moment that there are no employers, no firms to send your resumé to, no interviews to be had—what would you do? How would you forge your own path after graduation?The current economic climate has seen many graduates chasing a finite number of positions. The most ingenious and driven designers have found weird and wonderful ways of making opportunities for themselves, often by applying their skills across the creative disciplines of art, design, architecture, and interiors. Knowing what you want from your design career and being able to adapt your strategy to suit is basic and vital—just like in the wild, designers need to evolve.The book celebrates the various strategies that students and graduates are taking to gain exposure, while also including interviews and inspirational advice from those who are now enjoying success as a result of their creative approach to employment.
Stanley Donwood: There Will Be No Quiet
Stanley Donwood - 2019
His influential work spans many practices over a 23-year period, from music packaging to installation work to printmaking. Here, he reveals his personal notebooks, photographs, sketches, and abandoned routes to iconic Radiohead artworks. Arranged chronologically, each chapter is dedicated to a major work—whether an album cover, promotional piece, or a personal project—and is presented as a step-by-step working case study. Featuring commentary by Thom Yorke and never-before-seen archival material, this is the first deep dive into Donwood’s creative practice and the artistic freedom afforded to him by working for a major music act. It is a must-have for fans of the band and anyone interested in graphic design and popular culture.
The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
Alex W. White - 2002
The book also demonstrates how white space can lend “sound” to typography or shift the “weight” of a page. Clear, insightful comments are presented in a dynamic page design, and interactive design elements, thought-provoking captions, and scores of illustrations challenge designers to “think out of the box.”.
Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency
Andrea Oppenheimer Dean - 2002
Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings that bear the trademark of Mockbee's work, which he describes as "contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture."In a time of unexampled prosperity, when architectural attention focuses on big, glossy urban projects, the Rural Studio provides an alternative of substance. In addition to being a social welfare venture, the Rural Studio--"Taliesin South" as Mockbee calls it--is also an educational experiment and a prod to the architectural profession to act on its best instincts. In giving students hands-on experience in designing and building something real, it extends their education beyond paper architecture. And in scavenging and reusing a variety of unusual materials, it is a model of sustainable architecture. The work of Rural Studio has struck such a chord-both architecturally and socially--that it has been featured on Oprah, Nightline, and CBS News, as well as in Time and People magazines.The Studio has completed more than a dozen projects, including the Bryant "Hay Bale" House, Harris "Butterfly" House, Yancey Chapel, Akron Chapel, Children's Center, H.E.R.O. Playground, Lewis House, Super Sheds and Pods, Spencer House addition, Farmer's Market, Mason's Bend Community Center, Goat House, and Shannon-Dutley House. These buildings, along with the incredible story of the Rural Studio, the people who live there, and Mockbee and his student architects, are detailed in this colorful book, the first on the subject."I tell my students, it's got to be warm, dry, and noble"--Samuel Mockbee
Beautiful Evidence
Edward R. Tufte - 2006
Beautiful Evidence is about how seeing turns into showing, how data and evidence turn into explanation. The book identifies excellent and effective methods for showing nearly every kind of information, suggests many new designs (including sparklines), and provides analytical tools for assessing the credibility of evidence presentations (which are seen from both sides: how to produce and how to consume presentations). For alert consumers of presentations, there are chapters on diagnosing evidence corruption and PowerPoint pitches. Beautiful Evidence concludes with two chapters that leave the world of pixel and paper flatland representations - and move onto seeing and thinking in space land, the real-land of three-space and time.
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug - 2000
And it’s still short, profusely illustrated…and best of all–fun to read.If you’ve read it before, you’ll rediscover what made Don’t Make Me Think so essential to Web designers and developers around the world. If you’ve never read it, you’ll see why so many people have said it should be required reading for anyone working on Web sites.
The Architecture of Happiness
Alain de Botton - 2006
The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and it argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.Whereas many architects are wary of openly discussing the word beauty, this book has at its center the large and naïve question: What is a beautiful building? It is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture that aims to change the way we think about our homes, our streets and ourselves.
Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises
Architecture For Humanity - 2006
The physical design of our homes, neighborhoods and communities shapes every aspect of our live, yet where architects are most desperately needed, they can least be afforded. Design Like You Give a Damn is a compendium of innovative projects from around the world that demonstrate the power of design to improve lives. It offers a history of the movement toward socially conscious design, and showcases more than 80 contemporary solutions to such urgent needs as basic shelter, healthcare, education and access to clean water, energy and sanitation.