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The Bookshelf

Explore the latest contemporary topics, references and thinking in design, art, business and more

Art= by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

50 Books | 50 Covers Winners

Enjoy discounts on recent award-winning book designs from the AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers competition. This time-honored competition aims to identify the 50 best-designed books and book covers.

About 50 Books | 50 Covers

KAWS: He Eats Alone

Artbook

KAWS: He Eats Alone

25% off with code AIGAMEMBER25
Kyle Meyer: Interwoven

Artbook

Kyle Meyer: Interwoven

25% off with code AIGAMEMBER25
The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object & Performance

Artbook

The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object & Performance

25% off with code AIGAMEMBER25
Tallur L.N.: Interference Fringe

Artbook

Tallur L.N.: Interference Fringe

25% off with code AIGAMEMBER25
Snacky Tunes

Phaidon

Snacky Tunes: Music is the Main Ingredient

20% off with code AIGA20

AIGA Discount

Save 20% at Phaidon.com

Receive 20% off your purchase with code AIGA20 (Excludes signed and limited editions). Explore a selection of Phaidon books below.

AIGA Discount

Save 25% at Artbook.com

Artbook offers 25% off on their catalog of books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture. Explore more from Artbook below. Discount automatically applied.
* If you are having trouble seeing the discount, use code AIGAMEMBER25

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50 Books | 50 Covers of 2020 Winner. Interior spread of a book using photography as illustration. The image is a portrait woven with blue and white fabric. Title of the books is Kyle Meyer: Interwoven.

50 Books | 50 Covers of 2020

Winners Announced!

Image: Interior spread from Kyle Meyer: Interwoven by Radius Books

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Browse More Books

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction

Art

Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction

This richly illustrated catalog explores the artist’s interdisciplinary and cross-pollinating approach to abstraction through some 400 works, including textiles, beadwork, polychrome marionettes, architectural and interior designs, stained glass windows, works on paper, paintings and relief sculptures. It also features 15 essays that examine the full sweep of Taeuber-Arp’s career.
Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You

Art

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You

Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Kruger (born 1945) has been interrogating the hierarchies of power and control in works that often combine visual and written language. In her singular graphic style, Kruger probes aspects of identity, desire and consumerism that are embedded in our everyday lives.
Theory of Type Design

Design

Gerard Unger

Theory of Type Design

Theory of Type Design, by internationally renowned Dutch graphic designer and typographer Gerard Unger (born 1942), is the first complete and accessible theory of the breathtakingly varied field of typography. "Of all designed objects letters are probably the most pervasive," as Unger explains at the beginning of his study. "Very familiar yet amazingly diverse in their appearance … there seems to be no limit to human ingenuity when it comes to varying letterforms."
Black Lives 1900

Design & History

Jacqueline Francis + Stephen G. Hall

Black Lives 1900

How W.E.B. Du Bois combined photographs and infographics to communicate the everyday realities of Black lives and the inequities of race in America. This beautifully designed book reproduces the photographs alongside the revolutionary graphic works for the first time.
Design Struggles

Design

Claudia Mareis + Nina Paim

Design Struggles

Critically assessing the complicity of design in creating, perpetuating and reinforcing social, political and environmental problems—both today and in the past—Design Struggles proposes to brush the discipline against the grain, by problematizing Western notions of design, fostering situated, decolonial and queer-feminist modes of disciplinary self-critique.
Art = Book Cover

Design

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Art =

Featuring more than 800 artworks from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this groundbreaking book — organized by thematic keywords — draws upon The Met's online Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History — offering fresh, unconventional ways of engaging with visual culture.
A New Program for Graphic Design

Design Practice

David Reinfurt

A New Program for Graphic Design

A New Program for Graphic Design is the first communication-design textbook expressly of and for the 21st century. Three courses―Typography, Gestalt and Interface―provide the foundation of this book.
Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps

Design

Annie Atkins

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps

A behind-the-scenes look at the extraordinary and meticulous design of graphic objects for film sets
Synergetic Stew

LARS MüLLER PUBLISHERS

Synergetic Stew

Buckminster Fuller is globally known as a design scientist, architect, author, poet, engineer and a true visionary. On his 86th birthday he received the cookbook Synergetic Stew as a surprise present from his friends and admirers, who share recipes along with personal anecdotes and humorous recollections of Fuller. Scattered throughout the book are enticing texts and poems from Fuller himself, including even a recipe for tomato ice cream.
French New Wave

Design & History

Tony Nourmand

French New Wave

French New Wave: A Revolution in Design celebrates explosive and groundbreaking poster art that accompanied French New Wave films like The 400 Blows (1959), Jules and Jim (1962) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

Design Practice

John Foster, Peter Dawson, Sean Adams + Tony Seddon

Graphic Design Rules

Graphic Design Rules is a handy guide for professional graphic designers, students, and laymen who incorporate graphic design into their job or small business. Packed with practical advice, this spirited collection of design dos and don'ts takes readers through 365 rules.
WA: The Essence of Japanese Design

Design

Rossella Menegazzo, Stefania Piotti, Kenya Hara

WA: The Essence of Japanese Design

Through some 300 objects this book explores contemporary Japanese design: from everyday objects and packaging to interior design and lighting elements. Ultimately the book aims to explore the way in which Japanese design manages to harness its materials and at the same time combines respect for tradition with forward-thinking and experimentation.
A Bestiary of the Anthropocene

Nicolas Nova

A Bestiary of the Anthropocene

A sort of field handbook, A Bestiary of the Anthropocene aims to help us orient ourselves within the technosphere and the biosphere. What happens when technologies and their unintended consequences become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to define what is “natural” or not? What does it mean to live in a hybrid environment made of organic and synthetic matter?
Graphic Design the New Basics

Design

Ellen Lupton + Jennifer Phillips

Graphic Design the New Basics

Graphic Design: The New Basics explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of design. A foundational graphic design book for students, Lupton and Phillips explore the formal elements of design through visual demonstrations and concise commentary. From logos to letterhead to complex website design, this is a graphic design book for everyone.
Design Is Storytelling

Design

Ellen Lupton

Design Is Storytelling

Design Is Storytelling explores the psychology of visual perception from a narrative point of view. Presenting dozens of tools and concepts in a lively, visual manner, this book will help any designer amplify the narrative power of their work.
The Impossibility of Silence

Design

Ian Lynam

The Impossibility of Silence

Called “the Hunter S. Thompson of design writing,” Lynam uses his industry knowledge and sharp sense of humor to convey his philosophy on writing specifically in a professional creative setting.
The Business of Design

Business

Keith Granet

The Business of Design

The Business of Design debunks the myth that business sense and creative talent are mutually exclusive and, unlike other lackluster business books, is written and illustrated to captivate a visually thinking audience. The Business of Design reveals the tools necessary to create and run a thriving design business in today's ultra-competitive marketplace.
How Posters Work

Design

Ellen Lupton

How Posters Work

With its unique focus on visual language, Ellen Lupton's How Posters Work is more than another poster book. Rather than provide a history of the genre or a compilation of collectibles, the book is organized around active design principles. Concepts such as "Simplify," "Focus the eye," "Exploit the diagonal," "Reverse expectations" and "Say two things at once" are illustrated with a diverse range of posters, from avant-garde classics and rarely seen international works to contemporary pieces by today's leading graphic designers.
How Design Makes Us Think

Design

Sean Adams

How Design Makes Us Think

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.
Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty

Design

Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh

Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty

World-renowned designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh set out on a mission: to find out what beauty is and the many ways that it impacts our lives. They turn to philosophy, history, and science to understand why we are drawn to beauty and how it influences the way we feel and behave.
Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented

Design & History

Jodi Hauptman + Adrian Sudhalter

Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented

How the modernist avant-gardes from Dada to constructivism reconceived their roles, working as propagandists, advertisers, publishers, graphic designers, curators and more, to create new visual languag
Brown, Black + Latinx Design Educators

Design Education

Kelly Walters

Brown, Black + Latinx Design Educators

Kelly Walters collects twelve deeply personal interviews with graphic design educators of color from across the United States and Canada. The book centers the unique narratives of Black, Brown, and Latinx design educators, from their childhood experiences to their navigation of undergraduate and graduate studies and their career paths in academia and practice.
Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design

Design

Phaidon Editors

Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design

Born of the traditions of fine art and printing, graphic design is a form of visual communication that seeks to inform, identify or promote through the combination of word and image. But unlike the written word or a work of art, a graphic design operates exclusively in the context in which it will be seen, and mediates between the wishes of the client and the expectations of the public.
Building a Story Brand

Brand

Donald Miller

Building a Story Brand

This paradigm-shifting approach to connecting with customers gives you the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret to helping customers understand the benefits of using your products, ideas, or services.

Building a Story Brand does this by showing you how to capture your customer’s attention with clear, effective marketing messages.
Change by Design

Strategy

Tim Brown

Change by Design

Change by Design explains design thinking, the collaborative process by which the designer’s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people’s needs, not only with what is technically feasible, but what is viable to the bottom line. Design thinking converts need into demand. It’s a human-centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.
The Brand Gap

Brand

Marty Neumeier

The Brand Gap

THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand-building. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand”―a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

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