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Today’s technology makes it easier for anyone to be a designer, or at least call themselves one of any combination of titles: Graphic designer, art director, commercial artist, visual communicator, content creator.
The list goes on.
But design isn’t just about making things look good. That’s only a tiny part of it. A designer’s job is to focus on meaning, and how it can be created and communicated. To understand how products are sold and marketed. To evaluate business problems and solve them with creative ideas and processes. Like the list of titles, this too goes on and on.
That’s one of the great things about our profession: It’s impossible to put us in boxes. As soon as we get a handle on all of the interconnected branches that make up the family tree of design careers, new ones start growing in all directions.
To help build a strong foundation, designers must look to a variety of sources and varied opinions for knowledge on both the craft and the business of design. These are the top 10 books I recommend that every developing designer read. Everything on this list expands on the conversations I most frequently have with design students, impacted how I approach my job, or can help you think differently about how you do yours. There are also a few things that I just don’t want to see lost to time.
1. Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience (2nd Edition)
Tom Greever, 2020
Tom wrote a whole book on a topic that most only commit a chapter to: How to effectively communicate about your work with the people that matter most. It’s an excellent resource for anyone struggling to explain the intent behind their design decisions; for newbies and managers alike. This book is a must-read if you work with clients, business partners, or product stakeholders.
2. Bluebeard: A Novel
Kurt Vonnegut, 1987
Bluebeard is a lesser-known but equally strong entry from his catalog. And I’m a little biased toward recommending Vonnegut books. Through years of teaching design, I’ve learned how important it is for students to understand the differences between art and design, and especially to understand the proper mindset of a designer. So why not get both perspectives and put yourself in the mind of an artist as well? This book stacks up with some of the great portraits of fictional artists, like W. Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence and Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev. You should be able to find them all in your local library.
3. Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America’s Master Communicator
George Lois, 2012
A lifetime of advice from the man the Wall Street Journal called “prodigy, enfant terrible, founder of agencies, creator of legends.” I tend to gift copies of this book to the designers I manage and almost always screen his remarkable TED talk “If you do it right, it, and you, will live forever” with my students.
4. Design is Storytelling and Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming
Ellen Lupton, 2017 and 2011
If you’re paying attention, this is technically two books (bringing the list total up to 11). But they’re from the same author and I couldn’t just choose one. Most of Lupton’s books center on aesthetics, praising the output of design as a product of creativity. Not these two! Design is Storytelling will help you bring the narrative power of your work to life, and Graphic Design Thinking is all about process and research. And in true Lupton fashion, both books are beautiful.
5. Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability (3rd Edition)
Steve Krug, 2014
The world is full of poor design; full of confusing or complicated-to-use products. Products that make us think too hard about the goals we’re trying to accomplish. This book will teach you how to eliminate those question marks. Krug laid out many valuable — and simple — principles on human-computer interaction that, 20 years after the first edition, are still very relevant for anyone designing experiences today.
6. Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life
James Victore, 2019
Victore is one of the few remaining artists in the design world. This book is mainly written for the practicing “creative genius” and artist and is full of brutal honesty about design, art, humor, knowing thyself, and embracing authenticity. Plus his signature mustache.
7. The Hucksters
Frederic Wakeman, 1945
A portrait of the emerging Post-World War II advertising world, before Madison Avenue was the center of it and radio still ruled. If you’re interested in reading about the birth of modern design, then go hunt for a used copy of this novel. The narration of a train ride from New York to Hollywood is worth it alone.
8. It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, 2018
Fried and Hansson write, “It’s time to stop celebrating Crazy, and start celebrating Calm.” This glimpse into the culture at 37Signals/Basecamp had as big of an impact on the way I view my workdays (and workplace) as Sprint from the Google Ventures team. The authors provide a fresh perspective on the modern workplace, and you’ll find yourself agreeing with almost every declarative.
9. The Process is the Inspiration
House Industries, 2017
A whole coffee table book dedicated to the question: “Where do you find inspiration?” The people at House Industries expound on process, obsessive curiosity, and bringing your passions to work way better than I ever could.
10. User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play
Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant, 2020
The authors “reveal the untold story of a paradigm that quietly rules our modern lives: The assumption that machines should anticipate what we need.” User Friendly is essential reading if you care about user-friendly design. After a dozen or so pages, you’ll reconsider your relationship with technology.
- Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience (2nd Edition)
- Bluebeard: A Novel
- Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America’s Master Communicator
- Design is Storytelling and Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming
- Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability (3rd Edition)
- Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life
- The Hucksters
- It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work
- The Process is the Inspiration
- User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play
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