Designers & Books publishes lists of books that esteemed members of the international design community identify as important, meaningful, and formative—books that have shaped their values, their worldview, and their ideas about design. In doing this we hope to focus attention on how books can be important and inspired sources of creativity, innovation, and invention.

From Vitruvius to William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright to Edith Wharton to Le Corbusier to Paul Rand—there has always been a particularly special and robust relationship between designers and books: reading them, writing them, designing them, collecting them, learning from them, and being inspired by them. We celebrate that relationship.

Our mission is to foster conversations that will challenge students, stimulate emerging designers, energize established designers, and be of value and interest to all members of the design community (and perhaps beyond, too, given the increased level of attention now being devoted to design).

We will be adding new designers to the website on an ongoing basis. We hope you will find the book lists that are posted to be enlightening, entertaining, and educational—as well as opportunities to initiate conversations.

Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers have been working together in one form or another since 2002. After graduating Tyler School of Art’s militant design program, Kernevich and Summers began making silkscreen posters for Philadelphia’s independent music scene. The graphic and conceptual simplicity of their collaborations made an immediate impact on the burgeoning poster revival in North America. Local clients and small projects paved the way to international acclaim and assignments from the likes of R.E.M., Wilco, and The New York Times. They now run a full-service design and illustration operation, applying their graphic elegance and visual wit to a wide range of clients and projects. They’ve won awards from Communication Arts, American Illustration, Print Magazine, Graphis, and the Society of Illustrators.

As the art museum of the University of Chicago, the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art promotes the understanding of the visual arts and their importance to cultural and intellectual history through direct experiences with original works of art and through an interdisciplinary approach to its collections, exhibitions, publications, and programs. These activities support life-long learning among a range of audiences including the University and the broader community.

An integral part of the John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery (CFG) is the principal venue for the Haverford College Exhibitions Program, which aims to extend cultural literacy through the display and analysis of work across visual and material media. Envisioning exhibition spaces as active workshops for the exploration of visual culture, the Exhibitions Program partners with faculty, students, and visiting curators to design exhibitions that connect curricular interests and scholarship with contemporary artistic practice. In so doing, the Exhibitions Program encourages intellectual inquiry and artistic innovation in the Haverford community and greater Philadelphia region.

Drawing on the vibrant arts community and world-class museums and galleries of nearby Philadelphia, the Exhibitions Program showcases some of the region’s most compelling new artwork; at the same time, the program strives to bring noteworthy artistic exemplars of both national and international perspectives to the area.

The fine art collections of Pomona College are housed in the Pomona College Museum of Art, at the Montgomery Art Center, which was inaugurated in 1958 and named for the late Gladys K. Montgomery, Pomona trustee and Los Angeles civic leader. Among important holdings are the Kress Collection of 15th- and 16th-century Italian panel paintings; over 5,000 examples of Pre-Columbian to 20th-century American Indian art and artifacts, including basketry, ceramics, and beadwork; and a large collection of American and European prints, drawings, and photographs. In addition to serving as the basis for exhibitions, the collections, which are always available for individual study and research, are frequently used for classes.

The Pomona College Museum of Art also is the site of an active program of temporary exhibitions throughout the academic year. These include regular faculty and student shows, as well as historical and contemporary exhibitions designed to complement the College's curricula and to expose students to as wide a variety of works of art as possible. All exhibitions open with public receptions and include lectures and related programs for the College community.

The mission of the Harvard Art Museums is to preserve, document, present, interpret, and strengthen the collections and resources in their care, and in keeping with the larger purposes of Harvard University, to advance the knowledge and appreciation of art and art museums through research, teaching, professional training, and public education.

The Arthur Ross Gallery is a one- room gallery (kunsthalle) located in the Ann and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania. The building is of national importance, designed by Frank Furness in a late-Victorian Romanesque style in red sandstone and completed in 1891. Established in 1983, the Arthur Ross Gallery is one of three arts and artifacts-focused exhibition centers/ museums on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, a distinction it shares with the Institute of Contemporary Art and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Despite its more modest facility and program (four exhibitions per year, lectures and educational outreach), the Arthur Ross Gallery sustains a much broader focus: it embraces an eclectic program of changing exhibitions in all fields of the visual arts and cultural artifacts from around the globe.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, is committed to preserving and developing its art collection and continuing its legacy of collecting significant art of the time; providing excellence in art historical scholarship, education, and exhibition; inspiring social and intellectual inquiry into the connections between art and contemporary life; and engaging audiences on campus, in the local community, across the nation, and worldwide.

The mission of the Yale University Art Gallery is to encourage appreciation and understanding of art and its role in society through direct engagement with original works of art. The Gallery stimulates active learning about art and the creative process through research, teaching, and dialogue among communities of Yale students, faculty, artists, scholars, alumni, and the wider public. The Gallery organizes exhibitions and educational programs to offer enjoyment and encourage inquiry, while building and maintaining its collections in trust for future generations.

SUArt Galleries' mission is to enhance the cultural environment of its community and surrounding area.

Its vision is to provide meaningful educational experiences and encounters with the visual arts. The educational experiences will concentrate on exhibitions in the main campus gallery and satellite galleries of objects from the university's encyclopedic permanent collection covering the styles and time periods from pre-history to the present. SUArt will also organize and exhibit temporary exhibitions from outside collections examining a broad spectrum of visual arts themes, subjects and time periods.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University promotes engagement with the visual arts among a broad community including Duke students, faculty, and staff, the greater Durham community, the Triangle region, and the national and international art community. The museum is dedicated to an innovative approach, and presents collections, exhibitions, publications, and programs that attain the highest level of artistic excellence, stimulate intellectual discourse, enrich individual lives, and generate new knowledge in the service of society. Drawing on the resources of a leading research university, the museum serves as a laboratory for interdisciplinary approaches to embracing and understanding the visual arts.

Dedicated to serving the public of New England as well as the University community the BOSTON UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY (BUAG) is a non-profit art gallery geared toward an interdisciplinary interpretation of art and culture. Maintaining an ongoing exhibition schedule in its current location on Commonwealth Avenue since 1958, exhibitions focus on international, national, and regional art developments, chiefly in the twentieth century. BUAG has a particular commitment to offer a culturally inclusive view of art, one that expands the boundaries of museum exhibitions.

BUAG presents four to five exhibitions annually. Exhibitions are curated internally, often incorporating the rich talent and resources found on campus and in the Boston area, or are borrowed from other institutions. Through its exhibitions and educational programs, BUAG seeks to present the cultural and historical context of art and to acknowledge the artistic contributions of under-recognized sectors of the population. Each spring our season closes by highlighting the achievements of School of Visual Art students with the MFA Graphic Design and Senior Thesis exhibitions.

Gallery lectures, panel discussions, and symposia (often co-sponsored with other regional institutions and university departments) regularly accompany the exhibitions, as do high quality scholarly catalogs.

BUAG’s diverse exhibition history includes works by the following impressive list of artists: Josef Albers, Brooke Alexander, David Aronson, Felice Beato, Margaret Bourke-White, Philip Guston, Al Held, Hans Hofmann, Ellsworth Kelly, Joyce Kozloff, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Jacob Lawrence, Jacques Lipschitz, Whitfield Lovell, Michael Mazur, Alice Neel, David Smith, Raphael Soyer, Pat Steir, John Walker, and Edward Weston.

The mission of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive is to inspire the imagination and ignite critical dialogue through art and film.

The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive is the visual arts center of the University of California, Berkeley. Through art and film programs, collections and research resources, we aspire to be locally connected and globally relevant, engaging audiences from the campus, community, and beyond.

The Johnson Museum of Art is located on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York. It houses Cornell's art collection, which was begun in the 1880s by Cornell's first president, Andrew Dickson White.

In 1973, the Museum moved into its present building, designed by I. M. Pei; it is a small masterpiece, with stunning views of Cayuga Lake, the campus, and Ithaca. An extension, based on Pei's original plans for the Museum, will open in 2011.

Funds for the building were donated by Herbert F. Johnson, a graduate of Cornell's Class of 1922, the late president and chairman of S C Johnson of Racine, Wisconsin.

The Johnson Museum has one of the finest collections of art in Upstate New York State and is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the country. The permanent collection consists of more than 35,000 works of art. Aside from the outstanding Asian collection, its greatest strengths are in graphic arts and photographs ranging from the fifteenth century to the present, modern and contemporary painting and sculpture, European art from ancient times to the present, African sculpture and textiles, and pre-Columbian sculpture and ceramics.

The Johnson receives funding from Cornell University, as well as from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New York State Council on the Arts, as well as foundations, corporations, businesses, and private donors. The Johnson is accredited by the American Association of Museums.

The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery features a series of engaging exhibitions each year that represent the diversity of artistic production today, as well as throughout the history of Eastern and Western art. In addition to exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection and organized from public and private sources, a number of traveling exhibitions are presented as well. Additionally, a portion of the gallery space is frequently dedicated to the exhibition of selected works from the permanent collection.

It’s Nice That exists to champion creativity across a whole host of disciplines. We publish exciting, original and engaging work from both established names and talented newcomers.

Counter-print.co.uk is dedicated to the promotion and sale of Art and Design related material. Often out of print or hard to find, we aim to celebrate both forgotten gems as well as those heralded designers that we all admire.

Comprehensive database of hand-picked design firms, studios, museums, organizations and resources.

David Finn has had over 15 solo exhibitions, including shows in New York, London, Milan, and Hong Kong. His commissioned works include public and community artworks in New York and North Carolina. He is the recipient of fellowship grants from the Bemis Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, North Carolina Arts Council, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Two catalogs of the artists work have been published. Finn has taught sculpture at Wake Forest University since 1987 and is the Rubin Fellow in the Arts.

ARTBOOK is a progressive company run by and for people who know and value art books and museum publishing. Founded in 2008 by members of the internationally respected art book distributor, D.A.P., ARTBOOK sells books by the world's most important museum and independent art, photography, architecture and design publishers through the website ARTBOOK.com; at curated pop-up stores in museums, specialty retail outlets and other cultural venues; and in permanent locations such as MoMA PS1. ARTBOOK operates ARTBOOK @ Paper Chase, a West Coast trade showroom and event space on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles. And ARTBOOK also partners with cultural and creative institutions - such as the Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Institute of the 21st Century, ForYourArt, Creative Capital, The Standard Culture Site, ArtTable and Metropolis Magazine - that wish to sell books on or through their own websites. ARTBOOK builds specialized libraries for private collectors, businesses and cultural institutions.

Since 2006, UK artist Richard Skelton has been releasing small run documentations of his own musical explorations through his Sustain Release label. These recordings are always exquisitely packaged, in materials and imagery that really invoke the feel of the recordings locked away on the discs.

Place and space play a big factor in Skelton’s creative process, transporting the listener to the environment in which the music was originally recorded. The visuals and tactile objects that are always included with the discs facilitate in entrenching the listener further in Skelton’s magical world that is brimming with sensation and history, as its not only Skelton’s music that the listener is experiencing, but how, in fact, he is able to maintain a deep and engaging conversation with his surroundings.

Frieze New York is an international contemporary art fair launching in May 2012. The fair will include over 170 of the world’s leading galleries. Like Frieze Art Fair in London, Frieze New York will be housed in a bespoke temporary structure, suffused with natural light. The fair will be located in Randall’s Island Park, Manhattan.

The Department of Advertising and Graphic Design is The Museum of Modern Art’s in-house design studio.

Lars Müller Publishers is an internationally active publishing house. It came into being in Baden, Switzerland, in 1983, as a result of the bibliophile passion of designer Lars Müller. The press has made a worldwide name for itself – and not just in specialist fields – with carefully edited and designed publications on architecture, design, and contemporary art.

Lars Müller works closely with his authors to produce significant publications of great independence, to the highest possible standards.

Lars Müller Publishers presents its program as a “school of seeing.” It offers a precise selection from the unmanageable flood of visual events, and brings together authors, designers, and artists who stand for quality and tenacity in their own right.

A filing cabinet on the internet by Rob Giampietro. Read about design, art, philosophy, education, and more.

Art, design and culture blog.

SUPERFLEX is an artists' group founded in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen.

SUPERFLEX describe their projects as Tools. A tool is a model or proposal that can actively be used and further utilized and modified by the user.

18 Hewett Street is an evolving space that will play host to a plethora of different exhibitions, gigs, forums and workshops as well as a retail space and supper clubs. Carefully curated to reflect our passions and beliefs, 18 Hewett Street will be a playground for people, brands and concepts that we love and represent.

Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, established in 1859, is among the nation's oldest and most distinguished institutions of higher learning. The organization, the legacy of Peter Cooper, occupies a special place in the cultural fabric of American life.

Muxel is inspired by the magical social collaging app Mixel. We favor scissor and scrap over tablet and touch screen. Each collage is a painfully arthritic endeavor of cutting, arranging, documenting and destroying. Bits pass not through air and on to outerspace, but slowly through post and in to personal space, where they are reincarnated and remixed. It’s a swirling, karmic circle of collage — each taking on new forms as pieces pass from artist to artist. It’s easy to Muxel, and we guarantee that each Muxel you mux will change the world. This is our Muxelfesto.

One of the nation’s largest facilities devoted to the art of our time, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) offers exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art created since 1945. The MCA documents contemporary visual culture through painting, sculpture, photography, video and film, and performance. Located in the heart of downtown Chicago, the MCA boasts a gift store, bookstore, restaurant, 300-seat theater, and a terraced sculpture garden with a great view of Lake Michigan.

Design Museum Holon opened in March 2010 and had quickly established itself as one of the world's leading museums of design and contemporary culture.

Oliver Sacks is a physician, best-selling author, and professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center.

A blog that explores the intersection of art, design, and physical craft.

A one-year, three-semester MA program in critical social theory focused on the arts, including the study of art theory and aesthetics, social history, social theory and the history of art.

Founded by Demet Muftuoglu-Eseli and Alphan Eseli in late 2009, ISTANBUL’74 cultivates platforms that connect Istanbul to the international cultural community by bringing global events to the city, making it the first and pioneering international arts and culture platform based in Turkey.

Since opening in October 1996, Lehmann Maupin has identified and cultivated the careers of an international roster of visionary and historically significant artists. We support artists working in new and challenging forms who are likely to impact contemporary art and culture. With curators and leading intellectuals in the field, we seek to present these artists in context; and, to accelerate their influence and value in the market.

The Great Discontent is a journal focusing on creativity, risk, and what connects us as artists.

David Zwirner is a contemporary art gallery active in both the primary and secondary markets. Since opening its doors in 1993, it has been home to innovative, singular, and pioneering exhibitions across a variety of media and genres. The gallery has helped foster the careers of some of the most influential artists working today, including Luc Tuymans and Neo Rauch, who had their U.S. debut exhibitions at the gallery (in 1994 and 2000, respectively), and has maintained long-term representation of a wide-ranging, international group of artists, including Michaël Borremans, Raoul De Keyser, Stan Douglas, Marcel Dzama, On Kawara, Toba Khedoori, Jockum Nordström, Raymond Pettibon, Thomas Ruff, Katy Schimert, Yutaka Sone, Diana Thater, and Christopher Williams.

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art is administered by the School of the Arts at the College of Charleston and exists to advocate, exhibit and interpret visual art, with an emphasis on contemporary art. The Institute is committed to providing a direct experience with works of art in all media within an environment that fosters creativity, individuality, innovation and education. In addition to producing exhibitions, lectures, film series, publications, and a comprehensive website, the Institute serves as an extension of the undergraduate curricula at the College and as a cultural resource for the region.

Freight + Volume is dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging and established artists, and in particular work which is innovative and not afraid to take risks.

Christian Weber is a film-maker and photographer who is consistently recognized for challenging the conventional interpretation of beauty. Creating assured visuals, Weber's work demonstrates a raw elegance that is both profound and precise within the verve and spirit of contemporary life.

REDUX CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER is a Charleston, SC nonprofit organization committed to the fostering of creativity and the cultivation of contemporary art through diverse exhibitions, subsidized studio space for artists, expansive educational programming, and a multidisciplinary approach to the dialogue between artists and audience.

The Otolith Group is an award winning artist led collective and organisation founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002 that integrates film and video making, artists writing, workshops, exhibition curation, publication and developing public platforms for the close readings of the image in contemporary society. The Group's work is formally engaged with research led projects exploring the legacies and potentialities of artists led proposals around the document and the essay film, the archive, the aural and sonic medium, speculative futures and science-fictions.

As a public entity, the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) assumes responsibility for disseminating contemporary art, offering a diverse range of visions, and generating critical debates on art and culture, while aspiring to reach increasingly diverse audiences. MACBA is an open institution where citizens can find a space of public representation, and also prioritises education and innovation in its field. All of the above, in addition to its commitment to heritage preservation and networking with other institutions, place MACBA at the forefront of the art system in Catalonia and confirm Barcelona’s position as a world art capital and an international benchmark.

The World’s First Social Art App, for iPad

Exhibiting Graphic Design Exhibitions

 Menswear & Design

An online oracle of all things cultural, from music, art, design, literature, entertainment and beyond, Spilt Milk is a carefully selected celebration of all that we find beautiful or fascinating, providing readers with their daily fix of inspiration and reference.

Felt & Wire is about the universe of design, paper and print — from posters to packaging, from memorable mail to beautiful books, from invitations to artistic innovations. 

design, art, architecture and photography inspiration

Creative events in London, New York, and Glasgow 

Creative Growth Art Center serves adult artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities, providing a stimulating environment for artistic instruction, gallery promotion and personal expression. Artwork fostered in this unique environment is included in prominent collections and museums worldwide.

Phillip Fivel Nessen

Modern Graphic Design Collection and Rare Graphic Design Books