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Tags: books, Brad Pitt, Cortney Heimerl, David Byrne, Debbie Millman, Dev Patnaik, Deyan Sudjic, Ellen Lupton, Emily Pilloton, Eva Hagberg, Faythe Levine, Geoff Manaugh, Julia Lupton, Kristin Feireiss, Paul Goldberger, Roger Martin, Sam Lubell, Design
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By Alissa Walker | 12-20-2009 | 3:05 PM
The BLDG BLOG Book, by Geoff Manaugh
Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things, by Ellen and Julia Lupton
The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage, by Roger L. Martin
Living West: New Residential Architecture in Southern California, by Sam Lubell
Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, by Paul Goldberger
Architecture in Times of Need: Make It Right--Rebuilding the New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, by Kristin Feireiss and Brad Pitt
Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft and Design, by Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimerl
The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects, by Deyan Sudjic
Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design, by Debbie Millman
Dark Nostalgia, by Eva Hagberg
Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, by Dev Patnaik
Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People, by Emily Pilloton
Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne
Still in need of the perfect gift for the intuitive thinker in your life? From creative geniuses to crafty entrepreneurs to cycling urbanists, this year's design books have got you covered. Head down to your local bookstore and pick up one of 2009's best design and architecture tomes, many of them written by our own esteemed Expert Design Bloggers.
No one writes about architecture like Manaugh, whose own BLDG BLOG has cultivated a new language for discussing the future of our built environment. With cultural references that range from Hitchcock to climate change, these essays entertain as they provoke.
Buy it for: The geeked out sci-fi fan who majored in architecture but became a web developer.
Buy it for: The geeked out sci-fi fan who majored in architecture but became a web developer.
Co-authored by our guest blogger Ellen Lupton, this book successfully bridges the connection between high design--New Urbanism, Bauhaus, sustainability--and the more pressing issues that confront us every day--bras, clutter, baby carrots--in a visual language infused with personality thanks to Ellen's delightful little paintings.
Buy it for: Those who find Martha Stewart too pretentious and Rachael Ray too annoying.
Buy it for: Those who find Martha Stewart too pretentious and Rachael Ray too annoying.
Forget the scientific analysis, fire the consultants, and let designers use their intuition, says the dean of the Rotman School of Management. In his signature conversational voice, Martin uses great anecdotes and inspiring stories to build a case for design thinking as the only true competitive edge.
Buy it for: Your boss.
Buy it for: Your boss.
Cantilevered over Los Angeles, tucked into a San Diego cliff, or sprawled across the Joshua Tree desert, the houses of Southern California are some of the most exciting on the planet. Here, brand-new projects by 30 young designers showcase what it really means to design--and live--in the west.
Buy it for: Your neighbors who talk incessantly about making the move to California.
Buy it for: Your neighbors who talk incessantly about making the move to California.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic collects 57 essays from his time at The New Yorker, which also happened to be a frighteningly fruitful time for architects. Goldberger's seemingly-effortless prose takes us through the frenzy of the building boom to the burst of the housing bubble, from Dubai to Chicago, and every starchitect-crossed destination in between.
Buy it for: Your real estate broker friend who wants to relive her glory days.
Buy it for: Your real estate broker friend who wants to relive her glory days.
In the years after Hurricane Katrina, no effort did more to bring attention to the devastation of the Lower Ninth Ward than Brad Pitt's foundation Make It Right. Two years later, this book chronicles the recovery effort as well as the groundbreaking residential designs of architects like Thom Mayne, Shigeru Ban and David Adjaye.
Buy it for: The architecture junkie who really loved The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Buy it for: The architecture junkie who really loved The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Like a behind-the-scenes tour of DIY community Etsy.com, this book follows 25 makers into their studios to find out how the handmade movement is surviving and thriving in the U.S. These designers prove you can not only make something beautiful by hand, you can craft a career out of it, too.
Buy it for: Your friend who wants to quit his day job and knit sock monkeys.
Buy it for: Your friend who wants to quit his day job and knit sock monkeys.
Why, oh why, must we keep buying iPhones? The director of the London Design Museum has a few ideas about the way design influences our buying behavior and why innovation causes us to believe that what we have is never, ever good enough. And it's written every bit as seductively as the products Sudjic covers.
Buy it for: Your Steve Jobs-obsessed brother who can't seem to kick his three-Apple-products-a-month habit.
Buy it for: Your Steve Jobs-obsessed brother who can't seem to kick his three-Apple-products-a-month habit.
Our guest blogger Debbie Millman has a day job as president of Sterling Brands. But her nights have obviously been extremely busy as well, writing these essays on branding and consumerism, and creating custom pieces of artwork to tell each story, from a beautiful cross-stitch to a continuously-erased chalkboard.
Buy it for: Anyone who ever professed love for Levis or obsession with Keebler cookies.
Buy it for: Anyone who ever professed love for Levis or obsession with Keebler cookies.
It's an unavoidable aesthetic that's creeping into every corner of our bars and boutique hotels. Hagberg not only names the movement, she investigates the contemporary need for Victorian accoutrements like leather couches, high-gloss mahogany, cabinets of curiosities, and glass-eyed taxidermied creatures.
Buy it for: Your Steampunk friends.
Buy it for: Your Steampunk friends.
Written our guest blogger Dev Patnaik, this book urges companies to stop worrying about their brand and start building authentic connections to their consumers, by listening to them, talking to them, and in some cases, hiring them.
Buy it for: The CEO who's tried everything else.
Buy it for: The CEO who's tried everything else.
From high-tech water purification systems to soccer balls made with rolls of patterned tape, Pilloton compiles a greatest hits of social innovation from the last decade into this inspiring, colorful book. Filled with simple ideas and smart analysis about what it means to design for good.
Buy it for: A recent design grad who wants to make a difference.
Buy it for: A recent design grad who wants to make a difference.
Musician, author and PowerPoint artist, Byrne is also an avid cyclist, who takes a folding bike with him as he travels the world. These essays compiled from years of observing cities, architecture and urbanism are all told from a unique perspective: The seat of Byrne's bike.
Buy it for: Anyone who may ask themselves: "Where does that highway go to?"
Buy it for: Anyone who may ask themselves: "Where does that highway go to?"
Chronicle Books, $29.95St Martin's Press, $23.95Harvard Business School Press, $26.95The Monacelli Press, $50.00The Monacelli Press, $35.00Prestel USA, $39.95Princeton Architectural Press, $24.95W. W. Norton & Company, $24.95HOW, $25.00The Monacelli Press, $45.00FT Press, $24.99Metropolis Books, $34.95Viking Adult, $25.95
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