"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." These words underpin Steve Jobs' success in relaunching Apple, and alights on a twenty first century truth - that we are more attuned to design than perhaps ever before. Looking for books about design? Browse through our expert recommendations to find the best books on design, illustration and related fields to give as a gift to a design lover—or for your own library. Given the prevalence of design considerations in the world of today, our interviews are truly wide-ranging. Here we feature everything from the esoteric – architectural colour in British interiors 1615-1840, for example, as well as Pop Modern or the art of the typeface - to the more mainstream, taking in aspects of design culture such as interior design, game design and garden design.
Confinement has limited our access to noteworthy spaces and places but given many a renewed interest in exploring home. At Five Books, how could we resist a book about libraries? For The Love of Books is a standout for ideas on how to curate your library, and ties in with recent debates about the value and virtue-signalling of libraries in lockdown. Design afficionados as well as literary types will hanker for a well-designed book. Home is where the heart is—and the Hi-Fi. As more music becomes digital rather than analogue, this design book presents an almost wistful look back at the designs that for many defined the acoustic experience of being homebound.
While we keep an eye out for the latest exciting design books to be published throughout the year, we also like to return time and again to personal favourites in the design canon like Junichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows, Bruno Munari's Design as Art. Browse the design archive, or create your own lists of the best books in any design field close to your heart, to share with like-minded readers everywhere. Who is your favourite designer of all time? Is there a design subject that piques your interest that you don't see on the site? Let us know by getting in contact with the editorial team.
The best books on Architecture and Aesthetics, recommended by Timothy Hyde
What’s at stake when we call a building beautiful or denounce it as ugly? MIT professor Timothy Hyde, author of Ugliness and Judgment, explores five books about the social, political and economic dimensions behind debates that often masquerade as arguments about style, but which deal with matters at the very heart of civil society.
