The Bookshelf

Explore the latest contemporary topics, references and thinking in design, art, business and more

Read with AIGA + Artbook

Celebrating winners of the 50 Books | 50 Covers competition from our friends at Artbook. Friends of AIGA receive 25% off with code AIGAMEMBER25!

View all winners on Artbook.com

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Afro-Atlantic Histories

Afro-Atlantic Histories brings together a selection of more than 400 works and documents by more than 200 artists from the 16th to the 21st centuries that express and analyze the ebbs and flows between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Stories of Resistance

Through the perspectives of international artists working across mediums, Stories of Resistance sheds light on the situations from which acts of resistance emerge and identifies themes and motifs that recur across history, cultures and regions.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Christian Dior

This volume features around 120 haute couture designs by Christian Dior from the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the House of Dior.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

William Mullan: Odd Apples

William Mullan’s obsession with apples began when he saw his first Egremont Russet at a Waitrose grocery store outside of London. In Odd Apples, each apple is lovingly rendered and styled according to its individual “personality.”

AIGA Discount

Save 20% at Phaidon.com

Receive 20% off your purchase with code AIGA20 (Excludes signed and limited editions). Explore a selection of Phaidon books below.

AIGA Discount

Save 25% at Artbook.com

Artbook offers 25% off on their catalog of books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture. Explore more from Artbook below. Discount automatically applied.
* If you are having trouble seeing the discount, use code AIGAMEMBER25

Keep in Touch

Join our newsletter list to stay up to date on all AIGA Book Events.

Call for Entries

Add your creations to the stacks.

The AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers competition recognizes the best of book and book cover design from around the world.

Enter Now

Browse More Books

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Tomi Ungerer: It's All about Freedom

From early childhood drawings of the 1930s to collages and objects from the last decade of the artist’s life, Tomi Ungerer: It’s All about Freedom presents a comprehensive cross section of Ungerer’s vast oeuvre for the first time, revealing the political and stylistic lines and breaks in his career as a “freewheeling artist.”

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

A–Z of Record Shop Bags

This exhaustive collection of record-store bags provides a unique perspective on record shopping in the UK over the last century, bringing together over 500 incredible bags (some possibly the only surviving examples) to document the fascinating story of British high street record shopping.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Ellen Lupton

Bauhaus Typography at 100

The Bauhaus looms large as one of the most influential legacies in 20th-century graphic design. Known for its bold sans-serif typefaces, crisp asymmetrical grids and clean use of negative space, the school emerged as the forebearer of a new look—one that seized the tools of mass production in the creation of a radical new art.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Everyday Play

“Life must be lived as play,” said Plato, and this book will help you rediscover the wonder in the weekly grind, and the extraordinary in the ordinary. Throughout history, philosophers, artists and writers have found liberation in taking play seriously.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Mexico: The Land of Charm

This volume gathers a surprising and engaging sampling of 350 pieces of printed matter: material that circulated between the 1910s and the 1960s, with print runs of anywhere from a thousand to tens of thousands of copies.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots

Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots is the first publication to capture the enormous body of distinctive and visually ecstatic graphic design that emanated from California throughout most of the twentieth century.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

The Extreme Self

If you’re wondering why the inside of your head feels so strange these days, this book has the answers. The Extreme Self is a new kind of graphic novel that shows how you’ve been morphing into something else.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Auto Erotica

Over the course of its 240 pages, Auto Erotica covers the gamut of motoring in Britain during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s through rare ephemeral booklets full of unusual graphic ideas and concepts.

Kelly Walters

Brown, Black + Latinx Design Educators

Kelly Walters collects twelve deeply personal interviews with graphic design educators of color from across the United States and Canada. The book centers the unique narratives of Black, Brown, and Latinx design educators, from their childhood experiences to their navigation of undergraduate and graduate studies and their career paths in academia and practice.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

New Grammar of Ornament

Ornaments are omnipresent: they can be found on buildings, fabrics, jewelry, tiles, ceramics and wallpaper. Scorned at the outset of the modern age, ornament has long since returned to architecture and influences design drafts as much as tattoo motifs.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

How Many Female Type Designers Do You Know?

A pioneering appraisal of female typographers, with historical research and interviews with contemporary practitioners.
This important new book surveys the past and present of women working in typography.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

CriticAll!

How can we encourage more people to become actively aware of and critical about the design of their environments? How can we make the realm of design criticism more inclusive?

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Ruben Pater

CAPS LOCK

CAPS LOCK: How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and How to Escape from It. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are inextricably linked. By sharing examples of radical design practices that challenge the supremacy of the market, it hopes to inspire a different kind of graphic design.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

R. Buckminster Fuller.

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

nitially published in 1969, and one of Fuller’s most popular works, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth is a brilliant synthesis of his world view.

Use code AIGA20

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Art =

Featuring more than 800 artworks from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this groundbreaking book — organized by thematic keywords — draws upon The Met's online Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History — offering fresh, unconventional ways of engaging with visual culture.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Massimo Vignelli

The Vignelli Canon

The famous Italian designer Massimo Vignelli allows us a glimpse of his understanding of good design in this book, its rules and criteria.

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps

Use code AIGA20

Annie Atkins

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps

A behind-the-scenes look at the extraordinary and meticulous design of graphic objects for film sets

Use code AIGA20

Snacky Tunes: Music is the Main Ingredient

The team behind the longest running food podcast, Snacky Tunes, presents a one-of-a-kind book exploring chefs' profound relationship with music through never-before-seen stories and recipes.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern-Thinking

R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern-Thinking is a major reassessment of Fuller’s legacy in the context of design, examining his singular vision of new conceptual models for design and architecture, alongside his ideas on their potentially world-altering consequences.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Gerard Unger

Theory of Type Design

Theory of Type Design, by internationally renowned Dutch graphic designer and typographer Gerard Unger (born 1942), is the first complete and accessible theory of the breathtakingly varied field of typography. "Of all designed objects letters are probably the most pervasive," as Unger explains at the beginning of his study. "Very familiar yet amazingly diverse in their appearance … there seems to be no limit to human ingenuity when it comes to varying letterforms."

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Jacqueline Francis + Stephen G. Hall

Black Lives 1900

How W.E.B. Du Bois combined photographs and infographics to communicate the everyday realities of Black lives and the inequities of race in America. This beautifully designed book reproduces the photographs alongside the revolutionary graphic works for the first time.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound

The Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré created an unmistakable and entirely unique body of work, first as a writer and linguist, and then in a dazzling series of colorful drawings on a multitude of subjects, from his native Bété culture to the urban milieu of Abidjan to the all-encompassing themes of fraternity, equality and global understanding.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Tallur L.N.: Interference Fringe

Using a range of mediums including found objects, appropriated industrial machines, carved stone and wood, cast bronze, and works embedded in concrete and studded with coins, Tallur questions the value we assign to money, icons and artifacts.

John Foster, Peter Dawson, Sean Adams + Tony Seddon

Graphic Design Rules

Graphic Design Rules is a handy guide for professional graphic designers, students, and laymen who incorporate graphic design into their job or small business. Packed with practical advice, this spirited collection of design dos and don'ts takes readers through 365 rules.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Tony Nourmand

French New Wave

French New Wave: A Revolution in Design celebrates explosive and groundbreaking poster art that accompanied French New Wave films like The 400 Blows (1959), Jules and Jim (1962) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964).

Use code AIGA20

Rossella Menegazzo, Stefania Piotti, Kenya Hara

WA: The Essence of Japanese Design

Through some 300 objects this book explores contemporary Japanese design: from everyday objects and packaging to interior design and lighting elements. Ultimately the book aims to explore the way in which Japanese design manages to harness its materials and at the same time combines respect for tradition with forward-thinking and experimentation.

Use Code AIGAMEMBER25

Bruno Vandermueren

Aeroflot: Fly Soviet, A Visual History

This book unfolds the story of Soviet air travel, from early carriers like Deruluft and Dobrolet to the enigmatic Aeroflot. Organized like an Air Force, with a vast fleet of aircraft and helicopters, Aeroflot was the world’s biggest air carrier of passengers and cargo, responsible for a wider range of duties than any other airline.

Ellen Lupton + Jennifer Phillips

Graphic Design the New Basics

Graphic Design: The New Basics explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of design. A foundational graphic design book for students, Lupton and Phillips explore the formal elements of design through visual demonstrations and concise commentary. From logos to letterhead to complex website design, this is a graphic design book for everyone.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Ellen Lupton

Design Is Storytelling

Design Is Storytelling explores the psychology of visual perception from a narrative point of view. Presenting dozens of tools and concepts in a lively, visual manner, this book will help any designer amplify the narrative power of their work.

Keith Granet

The Business of Design

The Business of Design debunks the myth that business sense and creative talent are mutually exclusive and, unlike other lackluster business books, is written and illustrated to captivate a visually thinking audience. The Business of Design reveals the tools necessary to create and run a thriving design business in today's ultra-competitive marketplace.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Ian Lynam

The Impossibility of Silence

Called “the Hunter S. Thompson of design writing,” Lynam uses his industry knowledge and sharp sense of humor to convey his philosophy on writing specifically in a professional creative setting.

Marty Neumeier

The Brand Gap

THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand-building. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand”―a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

Sean Adams

How Design Makes Us Think

How Design Makes Us Think collects hundreds of examples across graphic design, product design, industrial design, and architecture to illustrate how design can inspire, provoke, amuse, anger, or reassure us.

Use code AIGA20

Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh

Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty

World-renowned designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh set out on a mission: to find out what beauty is and the many ways that it impacts our lives. They turn to philosophy, history, and science to understand why we are drawn to beauty and how it influences the way we feel and behave.

Use code AIGA20

Phaidon Editors

Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design

Born of the traditions of fine art and printing, graphic design is a form of visual communication that seeks to inform, identify or promote through the combination of word and image. But unlike the written word or a work of art, a graphic design operates exclusively in the context in which it will be seen, and mediates between the wishes of the client and the expectations of the public.

Use code AIGAMEMBER25

Jodi Hauptman + Adrian Sudhalter

Publishing as Practice

On the work of three contemporary artist’s-book publishers who have developed fresh ways of broaching politics in publishing
This book documents Publishing as Practice, a residency at Ulises—a curatorial platform based in Philadelphia—that explores publishing as an incubator for new forms of editorial, curatorial and artistic practice.

AIGA Eye on Design Book Review

In CAPS LOCK, Ruben Pater Untangles the Relationship Between Graphic Design and Capitalism. AIGA Eye on Design discusses how Pater's book adds to the growing conversation around the role of design in shaping society.

Read the Review

Our Partners

There Is Value In Membership

Join today to access networking through your local chapter and a wide variety of local and national programs and events.

Join AIGA

The Bookshelf

Read with AIGA + Artbook

Afro-Atlantic Histories

Stories of Resistance

Christian Dior

William Mullan: Odd Apples

Save 20% at Phaidon.com

Save 25% at Artbook.com

Keep in Touch

Add your creations to the stacks.

Browse More Books

Tomi Ungerer: It's All about Freedom

A–Z of Record Shop Bags

Bauhaus Typography at 100

Everyday Play

Mexico: The Land of Charm

Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots

The Extreme Self

Auto Erotica

Brown, Black + Latinx Design Educators

New Grammar of Ornament

How Many Female Type Designers Do You Know?

CriticAll!

CAPS LOCK

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

Art =

The Vignelli Canon

Fake Love Letters, Forged Telegrams, and Prison Escape Maps

Snacky Tunes: Music is the Main Ingredient

R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern-Thinking

Theory of Type Design

Black Lives 1900

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound

Tallur L.N.: Interference Fringe

Graphic Design Rules

French New Wave

WA: The Essence of Japanese Design

Aeroflot: Fly Soviet, A Visual History

Graphic Design the New Basics

Design Is Storytelling

The Business of Design

The Impossibility of Silence

The Brand Gap

How Design Makes Us Think

Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty

Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design

Publishing as Practice

AIGA Eye on Design Book Review

Our Partners

There Is Value In Membership

Keep in touch

Engage & Learn

Partner

Connect