In the creative industry, having a good design book in our hands about essential principles can assist designers to develop and enhance skills when added to our daily routine. Some of us might have different areas of interest and reading a reliable source of information, will give us insights into the direction of our work.
These resources are the foundation of everything we know and practice in our profession. Books can also be a way to find answers and understanding which segment we want to specialize ourselves in the industry. There are also plenty of design articles and blog posts like this one that can also be a way to keep our knowledge up to date with the industry. But now, let’s focus on the books!
I have categorized them into 6 sections according to working fields in the design industry, these being Colours, Typography, Professional Practices, Layout, Branding and Logo Design, and lastly, General books of Design. I hope these books give you an input of information and ideas explosion.
Colors
Interaction of Color by Josef Albers: this influential book presents Albers's singular explanation of complex color theory principles: principles as color relativity, intensity, and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusion of transparency and reversed grounds. Considered by many one of the most important books on color ever written.
The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair: In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture. Commonly known as a fascinating and creative book.
Typography
Type Matters! by Jim Williams: is a book of tips for everyday use, for all users of typography, from students and professionals to anyone who does any layout design on a computer.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton: provides clear and focused guidance on how letters, words, and paragraphs should be aligned, spaced, ordered, and shaped. The book covers all typography essentials, from typefaces and type families, to kerning and tracking, to using a grid. Visual examples show how to be inventive within systems of typographic form, including what the rules are, and how to break them.
Professional Practices
Work for Money, Design for Love by David W Airey: Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions About Starting and Running a Successful Design Business by David Airey: How do I find new clients? How much should I charge for my design work? When should I say no to a client? How do I handle difficult clients? What should I be sure to include in my contracts? David Airey answers the questions all designers have when first starting out on their own.
Graphic Design for … by Andy Cooke: This guide explores ways in which graphic designers can successfully collaborate with other creative professionals and sectors, whether it be a more sophisticated logo for a product, a better-designed look book for a fashion brand, or a more intuitive wayfinding system for a museum.
Layout
Grid systems in graphic design by Josef Müller-Brockmann: This book is suitable for those who work with automated text and image design. It shows examples of working correctly on a conceptual level. Exact directions for using all of the grid systems presented are given to the user. These can be used for the most varied of projects. The three-dimensional grid is treated as well. Put simply: a guidebook from the profession for the profession.
Designing Design by Kenya Hara: The author impresses upon the reader the importance of “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan and its application to design, made visible by means of numerous examples from his own work.
Branding and Logo
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler: From research and analysis through brand strategy, design development through application design, and identity standards through launch and governance, the book offers brand managers, marketers, and designers a proven, universal five-phase process for creating and implementing effective brand identity.
Logo Modernism by Jens Müller: This book brings together approximately 6,000 trademarks, focused on the period 1940–1980, to examine how modernist attitudes and imperatives gave birth to corporate identity. Logo Modernism is a brilliant catalog of what good corporate logo design looks like.
General
How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry, and change the world by Michael Bierut: Michael Bierut has had one of the most varied careers of any living graphic designer. The projects he presents in this book illustrate the breadth of activity that graphic design encompasses today, his goal being to demonstrate not a single ideology, but the enthusiastically eclectic approach that has been a hallmark of his career.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman: shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time. The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how, and why, some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.