A Taste of My Favorite Design Books

We all have our favorite websites or design books that we use and go back to over and over again. I wanted to share (briefly), some of my workhorse design books. No matter what project I’m working on, I come back to these books over and over again to get my creative juices flowing. So here they are!

I bought this book because I am a huge fan of Jason Munn’s work. I am unbelievably drawn to his minimalistic and extremely clever approach to gig poster design. The longer I’ve had this little wonder of a book, the more I have realized what an incredible creative reference it can be. His ideas are challenging to me because he often uses as few as two colors and has themes that run through all his posters and somehow he still manages to capture the personality of each band he represents. His work is unmistakable and this book is one of my absolute best purchases.

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I’ve had Fingerprint for some years now. I bought it when it first came out, when doing entire designs by hand was still a novel concept and not quite mainstream yet. This book features so many inspiring designs; everything from posters to packaging. I have worn this one out for sure. I primarily look to it for technique at this point; texture or materials, etc. rather than exact style references. It’s a gem for sure.

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Anatomy of Design was probably one of my first serious design book purchases. It is where I first discovered James Victore and where I really began to fall more deeply in love with the design process. This book is really unique. It not only shows many different designs from various designers, but for each design it has a fold out page, almost like a centerfold. On these fold outs, it features a bit of a visual web with connections to the final design. These connections show where the designer took elements from his style references and put them together (listen to Podcast episode 10) to create something unique to them. If you are still early on in your design career, I HIGHLY recommend you buy this book.

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This is almost always the first book I grab when I start my logo style reference hunting process. Maybe it’s because of the fun chunky size with the elastic band, which I have long worn out. But the more I think about it, It’s likely because it contains so many different logos inside such a small book. It is thick and bursting at the seams with so many different logos (must be why it has an elastic band) that you could use it for years and still find inspiration, I know I have.

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I thought I would throw in something a little unexpected. While I have definitely designed my share of invitations, holiday cards, and various other mail-centered correspondence, I love this 1000 Greetings for more than what it actually contains. Something that I do often that I think is a really good practice is to look to find inspiration for one thing, in a completely different place than you would expect. For example, If you are looking for inspiration for an annual report, you could look at this book to find inspiration on how to work with a multi-page layout. Or you could look at it for ideas on type layout for a poster. Mini tip: don’t just look at posters for poster inspiration or invitations for invitation ideas, look at different things and you will never lack a unique idea.

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OMG Posters is my newest favorite addition to my collection (Christmas from my hubby). I actually have less than a handful of poster specific design books. I’m not sure if this is because I never want to rip off anyone’s ideas so directly since a big chunk of what I do is poster design or if they’re just too pricey. I tend to buy most of my design books used on Amazon if I can help it. Unless it’s written in or torn up, I don’t mind a few dog-eared corners or a worn cover. You can get them for next to half the price in many cases. I love this book because it not only tells you who the designers are for each poster, but it also tells you a little bit about them and where they work so you can get into their minds just a teensy bit. It’s opened up a new well of inspiration for me for sure and I’ve already used it a couple of times when I was idea hunting for some personal projects. I highly recommend it, but beware, it’s a big book.

Lastly, is this well-worn and marked up book. The 100 Habits book one is not so much one that I use when I’m actually researching or brainstorming for my design projects specifically. Often I use this book as creative motivation to just get started when I’m feeling in a rut. Each habit is numbered and no more than one paragraph. It could be possible to read one every day to keep your creative head on straight before you get going with your day. I have used this book to help me remember some of the reasons I do all that I do, from this blog, to my podcast, my personal projects, and my YouTube channel. The insights from other designers around the world makes me feel like I am not alone in my design thinking and it encourages me to do new things I had maybe not considered. This one is made for highlighting and circling and reading over and over again.