This is a collection of WDO’s favourite design books. It’s a go-to list of inspiring reads that address a wide range of topics from human-centred design and the collaborative process to value proposition and sustainability.
Your favourite publication is missing? Send us an email at web@wdo.org with the name of the publication, the author and the year it was published.
Happy Reading!
Author:
Charlotte Fiell and Clementine Fiell
Year published:
2019
ISBN:
9781786275318
A history of women working in the design industry (including, industrial, fashion, graphic, interactive and architecture), with profiles over 100 pioneering women designers (256 pp.)
Author:
Ezio Manzini
Year published:
2015
ISBN:
9780262028608
Reimagines design’s role in building a sustainable and resilient society, including community-supported agriculture in China, digital medical care platforms in Canada, collaborative housing in Milan (256 pp).
Author:
Donald A. Norman
Year published:
2013
ISBN:
9780465050659
This human-centred design guide explores why some products satisfy while others frustrate. It argues that usability and cognitive psychology are as important as aesthetics (368 pp.)
Author:
John Maeda
Year published:
2006
ISBN:
978-0262134729
Offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design―guidelines for needing less and actually getting more (128 pp).
Author:
Tim Brown
Year published:
2019
ISBN:
978-0062856623
Explains the collaborative process of design thinking and reveals how the techniques and strategies of human-centred design belong at every level of business (304 pp).
Author:
Roberto Verganti
Year published:
2017
ISBN:
9780262035361
Shares why innovation driven by meaning can create value in our current world and why this notion makes sense for business today(264 pp).
Author:
William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Year published:
2002
ISBN:
978-0224087865
Reframes design as a regenerative force that spurs innovation and provides enduring benefits for society from safe materials, water and energy in circular economies without waste (193 pp).
Author:
Afdhel Aziz and Bobby Jones
Year published:
2016
ISBN:
9781682450468
Presents a new business model that addresses environmental, civic, and economic issues in a way that grows brand and business, while giving back to society (304 pp).
Author:
Bill Moggridge
Year published:
2006
ISBN:
978-0262134743
Interviews 40 designers who have shaped interactive design, tracing the different ways people use everyday things in the digital era, from games to work tools (792 pp).
Author:
Charlotte Fiell and Peter M. Fiell
Year published:
2007
ISBN:
978-3822852675
Explores contemporary design and a more sustainable approach to product design, from lighting and furniture to consumer electronic equipment, transportation, product architecture, and environmental design (560 pp).
Author:
Sophie Lovell
Year published:
2011
ISBN:
9780714849188
Comprehensive monograph on the highly influential product designer Dieter Rams who, as head of design at Braun from 1961 to 1995, created some of the most iconic utility objects of the twentieth century (400 pp).
Author:
Klaus Klemp and Jorrit Maan
Year published:
2017
ISBN:
978-3791383668
Comprehensive overview of Braun designer Dieter Ram’s forty-year career designing iconic consumer products that enhance our daily lives (416 pp).
Author:
Eames Demetrios
Year published:
2012
ISBN:
978-1934429747
Celebrates the iconic work of husband-and-wife designers Charles and Ray Eames with details of their life and work, from their refined designs to to their innovative experiments (including the renowned Eames lounge chair and classic pieces still in production by Herman Miller (408 pp).
Author:
Alice Rawsthorn
Year published:
2018
ISBN:
9783037645215
Explores the most dynamic developments in contemporary design, assessing design’s impact on our lives now and in the future, from book-making to social design, craft revival to design’s gender politics (192 pp).
Author:
Jasper Morrison
Year published:
2015
ISBN:
978-3-03778-463-1
A collection of the products and projects that accompany our lives and shape our environment–a continuation of Morrison’s 2002 Everything but the Walls (312 pp).
Author:
Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman
Year published:
2001
ISBN:
978-0385499842
Shares the inspiring stories behind IDEOs design innovations over the past 20 years, with strategies for tackling a design challenge and ensuring continuous innovation (320 pp).
Author:
Charles Montgomery
Year published:
2014
ISBN:
978-0374534882
Explores the urban world’s potential for promoting health and happiness, with examples from some of the world’s most exciting and dysfunctional cities (358 pp).
Author:
Alexander Osterwalder,Yves Pigneur, Patricia Papadakos, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith
Year published:
2014
ISBN:
978-1118968055
Explains the processes and tools needed to design and test value propositions, taking the guesswork out of creating products and services that perfectly match customers’ needs and desires (320 pp).
Author:
Keith Granet
Year published:
2011
ISBN:
978-1616890186
Provides the necessary tools to create and run a thriving design business, from billing and human resources to branding and project management to marketing and licensing (208 pp).
Author:
Charlotte and Peter Fiell
Year published:
2019
ISBN:
978-3836541060
Profiles the work of contemporary designers from furniture to graphics who have shaped and re-created the modern world with a dizzying variety of materials (768 pp).
Author:
Robert Sommer
Year published:
2008
ISBN:
978-0136575771
Classic text on user-centred design; studies how people relate to the designed space around them and how the design of that space can affect their behavior, addressing topics such as privacy, spatial invasion, small-group ecology and the role of design in airports, stations, hospitals and schools (256 pp).
Author:
Charlotte Fiell
Year published:
2016
ISBN:
978-1580934701
Overview of the styles, movements, theories, materials, processes, technologies, pioneers, and companies that have shaped every significant era of design; and contextualizing design with respect to wider social, cultural, and political concerns (512 pp).
Author:
Paul Kunkel
Year published:
1997
ISBN:
978-1888001259
Examines the rise of the Industrial Design team at Apple, from their Silicon Valley garage to a billion-dollar corporation (288 pp).
Author:
Jerry Hirshberg
Year published:
1999
ISBN:
9780887309601
Jerry Hirshberg, founder and president of Nissan Design International (NDI), reveals the story of NDI’s genesis and his eleven interlocking strategies for designing an organization around creativity (288 pp).
Author:
Victor Papanek
Year published:
2005
ISBN:
978-0897331531
Overview of Papanek’s work and his understanding of design as a tool for political change and social good, providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design (416 pp).
Author:
Emily Pilloton
Year published:
2009
ISBN:
978-1933045955
Challenges designers to be changemakers instead of “stuff creators,” designing need-based products that empower individuals, communities and economies around the world (304 pp).
Author:
Michael Michalko
Year published:
2006
ISBN:
9781580087735
Reveals innovative, creative-thinking techniques for approaching everyday problems in unconventional ways, with fun, thought-provoking exercises (416 pp).
Author:
Kimberly Elam
Year published:
2011
ISBN:
978-1616890360
A mathematical explanation for how art works, with twentieth-century examples of design, architecture, and illustration, revealing underlying geometric structures in their compositions (144 pp).
Author:
Carma Gorman
Year published:
2003
ISBN:
9781581153101
An anthology on the history of industrial design, with essays tracing the the most crucial movements, issues, and accomplishments of industrial design from 1850 until today (256 pp).
Author:
Alex Milton and Paul Rodgers
Year published:
2011
ISBN:
978-1856697514
Introduction to the field of product design, from concept design to manufacture, prototyping to marketing as well as influential design movements and new and emerging forms of practice (240 pp).
Author:
Alex Steffen
Year published:
2008
ISBN:
978-0810970854
Packed with the information and tools needed to help build a better more sustainable future, including climate foresight, sharing systems, biomimicry and green chemistry, adaptive re-use and transparent governments (600 pp).
Author:
John Kolko
Year published:
2014
ISBN:
978-1625274793
Set of steps for identifying lucrative opportunities, designing for innovation, and producing products that have deep, meaningful emotional engagement (224 pp).
Author:
Dev Patnaik
Year published:
2009
ISBN:
9780137142347
Tells the story of how some of the world’s best organizations prosper when they tap into empathy, stop worrying about their own problems, start caring about the world around them and connect with other people (251 pp).
Author:
Quarterly MIT Journal
Year published:
1984 – present
ISSN:
0747-9360
Quarterly journal examines design history, theory, and criticism, provoking inquiry into the cultural and intellectual issues surrounding design (112 pp per issue).
Author:
Amelie Klein and Alison J. Clarke
Year published:
2018
ISBN:
978-3945852262
Overview of the work of designer, author, and activist Victor J. Papanek, demonstrating that his interpretation of design as a tool for social transformation continues to shape debate on social design, critical design, and design thinking (399 pp).
Author:
William J. Mitchell, Chris E. Borroni-Bird and Lawrence D. Burns
Year published:
2010
ISBN:
9780262013826
Provides a long-overdue vision for a new automobile era, where urban mobility is more convenient and sustainable, making cities more livable, and bringing the automobile industry out of crisis (240 pp).
Author:
Sasha Costanza-Chock
Year published:
2020
ISBN:
9780262043458
Documents community-led design practices that challenge rather than reproduce inequality, going beyond design for good, user-centered design to connecting design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival (360 pp).
Author:
Bon Ku and Ellen Lupton
Year published:
2020
ISBN:
9780262539135
Applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health care challenges, from drug packaging to early detection of breast cancer (228 pp).
Author:
Kat Holmes
Year published:
2018
ISBN:
9780262038881
Through stories of pioneers of inclusive design, shows how inclusion can be a source of innovation and growth, especially for digital technologies as well as an opportunity for more people to contribute to society in meaningful ways (176 pp).
Author:
Batya Friedman and David G. Hendry
Year published:
2019
ISBN:
9780262039536
Describes how both moral and technical imagination can be brought to bear on the design of technology; using a design process that engages human values at every stage (256 pp).
Author:
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
Year published:
2013
ISBN:
978-0262019842
A refreshing alternative to market-driven design, this book proposes design as a tool to create not only things but ideas, to imagine/achieve desirable futures (224 pp.)
Author:
Anne Watson
Year published:
2001
ISBN:
978-1863170949
20th century design collection brings alive the swinging sixties as source of inspiration, including original bean bag, Marilyn lips sofa and Expo talking chair (80 pp.)
Author:
John Thackara
Year published:
2006
ISBN:
9780262701150
Using real-world examples, shows that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding technical innovation, relying less on stuff and more on people and purpose (332 pp.)
Author:
Pelle Ehn, Elisabet M. Nilsson and Richard Topgaard
Year published:
2014
ISBN:
9780262537483
Describes experiments in innovation, design, and democracy that go beyond entrepreneurship and crowdsourcing in the service of corporations to include multiple futures imagined and made locally by often-marginalized publics (392 pp).
Author:
Rasmus Koch and Gitte Lindeborg Holst
Year published:
2005
ISBN:
978-8-790775-11-7
Documents the project work of seven design schools to improve life (local and global problems) through Industrial Design, Interactive Media Design and Visual Communication (568 pp.)
Author:
Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne
Year published:
2018
ISBN:
978-1621536406)
What does it mean to be a designer in today’s corporate-driven, overbranded global consumer culture? Citizen Designer, Second Edition, attempts to answer this question with more than seventy debate-stirring essays and interviews espousing viewpoints ranging from the cultural and the political to the professional and the social. This new edition contains a collection of definitions and brief case studies on topics that today’s citizen designers must consider, including new essays on social innovation, individual advocacy, group strategies, and living as an ethical designer. Edited by two prominent advocates of socially responsible design, this innovative reference responds to the tough questions today’s designers continue to ask themselves, such as: How can a designer affect social or political change? Can design become more than just a service to clients? At what point does a designer have to take responsibility for the client’s actions? When should a designer take a stand?
Author:
William Myers (Editor) and Paola Antonelli (Foreword)
Year published:
2012
ISBN:
9780870708442
For centuries, designers and artists have looked to nature for inspiration and materials, but only recently have they developed the ability to alter and incorporate living organisms or tissues into their work. This startling development, at the intersection of biology and design has created new aesthetic possibilities and helps address a growing urgency to build and manufacture ecologically. Bio Design surveys recent design and art projects that harness living materials and processes, presenting bio-integrated approaches to achieving sustainability, innovations enabled by biotechnology, and provocative experiments that deliberately illustrate the dangers and opportunities in manipulating life for human ends. As the first publication to focus on this new phenomenon and closely examine how it fits into the history of architecture, art and industrial design, this volume surveys this shift and contextualizes it through comparisons to previous historic transitions in art and design practices, clarifying its implications for the future. A reference for students and teachers of art, architecture, industrial design and engineering, Bio Design will also introduce the subject to a broad audience.
Author:
Tom Kelley and David Kelley
Year published:
2013
ISBN:
978-0385349369
Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the “creative types.” But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world’s top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.
Author:
Carlo Vezzoli, Fabrizio Ceschin, Lilac Osanjo, Mugendi K. M’Rithaa, Richie Moalosi, Venny Nakazibwe and Jan Carel Diehl
Year published:
2018
ASIN:
B07D52KFGB
This open access book addresses the issue of diffusing sustainable energy access inlow- and middle-income contexts.Access to energy is one of the greatest challenges for many people living in low-income and developing contexts, as around 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity.Distributed Renewable Energy systems (DRE) are considered a promising approachto address this challenge and provide energy access to all. However, even if promising,the implementation of DRE systems is not always straightforward.The book analyses, discusses and classifies the promising Sustainable Product-ServiceSystem (S.PSS) business models to deliver Distributed Renewable Energy systems in aneffective, efficient and sustainable way. Its message is supported with cases studies andexamples, discussing the economic, environmental and socioethical benefits as wellas its limitations and barriers to its implementation
Author:
Marko Brajovic
Year published:
2016
ISBN:
978-8592822002
This book does not intend to exhaust conceptual or scientific paradigms or to address specific sustainability issues. It aspires to introduce experimental tools for creative innovation inspired by nature. A mechanical paradigm of our actual society is still mirrored by an architecture based on a pyramidal hierarchy. In the upcoming post-industrial era, social structure is evolving towards a more organic system. I believe that a synergetic and non-centralized society is already emerging and that a new architecture will manifest that evolution.
Author:
Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, Simone Ahuja and Kevin Roberts
Year published:
2018
ISBN:
978-1-118-24974-1
Jugaad Innovation goes farther than conventional business books that chart consumer growth in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. It explains how emerging economies are pioneering the art of ‘frugal engineering,’ then provides practical tips on how Western companies—from tech startups to multinational industrial corporations—can likewise do more with less. A provocative and entertaining read for 21st century business leaders.
Author:
Chris Anderson
Year published:
2012
ISBN:
978-0307720955
Wired magazine editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent — creating “the long tail of things”.
Author:
Klaus Klemp
Year published:
2011
ISBN:
978-3899553970
Dieter Rams created ten rules of design more than twenty years ago. Sometimes referred to as the ten commandments, they are just as relevant today: Good design is innovative. Good design makes a product useful. Good design is aesthetic. Good design helps a product to be understood. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is honest. Good design is durable. Good design is consistent to the last detail. Good design is environmentally friendly. Good design is as little design as possible.
Author:
Simon Jimenez, A E Pohlmeyer, Pieter Desmet, Delft University of Technology. Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
Year published:
2015
ISBN:
978-9461864253
he Positive Design Reference Guide focuses on the why, what and how of human experience – both in general, and in relation to design for well-being. The guide provides you with a quick entry point into the variety of theories that we believe can be relevant for well-being-driven design. It comprises 29 models, theories and frameworks, separated into two sections. The first section presents a collection of theories drawn from (positive) psychology, and the second section presents a collection of theories and frameworks drawn from (positive) design research. Each theory is introduced with a short summary and a list of key publications that offer more extensive explanations. You are likely to be familiar with some of the theories, but will perhaps also discover some new ones.
Author:
Steven Eppinger and Karl Ulrich
Year published:
2015
ASIN:
B00ZYY672W
Treating such contemporary design and development issues as identifying customer needs, design for manufacturing, prototyping, and industrial design, Product Design and Development by Ulrich and Eppinger presents in a clear and detailed way a set of product development techniques aimed at bringing together the marketing, design, and manufacturing functions of the enterprise. The integrative methods in the book facilitate problem solving and decision making among people with different disciplinary perspectives, reflecting the current industry toward designing and developing products in cross-functional teams.
Author:
Ross Lovegrove
Year published:
2004
ISBN:
978-0714843674
This book is the first monograph on the product designer Ross Lovegrove. Written by the designer himself, with a forward by Paola Antonelli, it presents a complete overview of the designer’s career, featuring realized and unrealized project. While the main texts explains Ross Lovegrove’s philosophy and way of working, the products descriptions reveal the main feature and characteristic of every project. This book will present the work of Ross Lovegrove, one of the most interesting and fascinating individuals working in contemporary design. His work includes a wide range of products from furniture to high-tech products, from water bottles to airplane seats and explores the possibility of realizing sculptural and organic shapes through modern technology and material.
Author:
Libby Sellers
Year published:
2018
ASIN:
B07B9WHT9S
From architects and product designers to textile artists and digital innovators, Women Design profiles a selection of the most dynamic female designers from the modern era, showcasing their finest work and celebrating their enduring influence. Design throughout history has been profoundly shaped and enhanced by the creativity of women; as practitioners, commentators, educators and commissioners. But in a narrative that eagerly promotes their male counterparts, their contributions are all too often overlooked. Through 21 engaging profiles, Women Design rediscovers and revels in the work of pioneers such as Eileen Gray, Lora Lamm and Lella Vignelli, while shining a spotlight on modern-day trailblazers including Kazuyo Sejima, Hella Jongerius and Neri Oxman. Richly illustrated with archival imagery, this is a rare glimpse into the working worlds of some of the most influential forces in contemporary design.
Authors:
Maria José Ballcells, Santi Barjau, Isabel Campi, Álvaro Castro
Year published:
2021
ISBN:
978-8417769291
Every chair tells its own story, and all of them fit into this book—even the stories in which design is not overtly the topic at hand. Chairs and artificial intelligence; famous chairs on which Freud, Pessoa or Proust sat; chairs as historical, political and societal symbols; chairs for thin or corpulent people; rocking, creative, royal chairs: all these facets of chairs and more are packed into this volume.
Authors:
Robert Curdale
Year published:
2012
ISBN:
978-0988236202
Each of the 200 methods has a condensed one page step-by-step instructions for easy reading. Included are templates, descriptions of each method, instructions on when,where and why to use each method, resources needed and references. The two volumes in this series outline the design methodologies presented in a series of successful international workshops by Rob Curedale based on the methods of the world’s most innovative organizations. The author Robert Curedale focuses the experiences of decades of tacit knowledge from managing design for some of the world’s leading design brands and design consultancies and teaching at influential design schools and universities in Asia, Australia, Europe, Detroit, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
Authors:
Lidewij Edelkoort & Philip
Year published:
202o
ISBN:
978-9462263918
A Labour of Love, a 448-page publication by design curators and authors Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano. The book’s title refers to craftsmanship as an alternative form of pride and fulfilment. It comes at a unique time in history when principles are evolving and a more mindful, altruistic approach is needed in design and manufacturing. Divided into 12 themes that reflect current materials and techniques, this bold book introduces the new makers in contemporary design, previewing a future of responsible production, circular thinking, ethical practice and organic aesthetics.
Author:
Rebecca Proctor
Year published:
1970
ISBN:
9781780674735
Beginning with a chapter on sustainable materials, the book goes on to cover furniture, lighting, home accessories, and personal accessories. Web addresses of designers and retailers make each product easy to source. The Sustainable Design Book is an unbeatable resource for those aspiring to best practice within the field of sustainable design, as well as students of contemporary product design. Consumers looking for beautiful but environmentally conscious products and accessories will also find this an essential guide.
Author:
Katie Treggiden
Year published:
2020
ISBN:
9493039382
Wasted. When trash becomes treasure celebrates 30 optimistic and enterprising designers, makers and manufacturers who use waste as their primary resource, offering a rare glimpse into the embryonic world they inhabit. Accompanying these profiles, five in-depth and thematic essays will explore the societal, cultural and environmental implications of their work.
Author:
IDEO.org
Year published:
2015
ISBN:
978-0991406319
The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design reveals IDEO’s process with the key mindsets that underpin how and why we think about design for the social sector, 57 clear-to-use design methods for new and experienced practitioners, and from-the-field case studies of human-centered design in action. The Field Guide has everything you need to understand the people you’re designing for, to have more effective brainstorms, to prototype your ideas, and to ultimately arrive at more creative solutions.
Author:
Bruce Mau
Year published:
2020
ISBN:
978-1838660505
Bruce Mau has long applied the power of design to transforming the world. Developed over the past three decades, this remarkable book is organized by 24 values that are at the core of Mau’s philosophy. MC24 features essays, observations, project documentation, and design work by Mau and other high-profile architects, designers, artists, scientists, environmentalists, and thinkers of our time. Practical, playful, and critical, it equips readers with a tool kit and empowers them to make an impact and engender change on all scales.
Author:
What Design Can Do
Year published:
2020
ISBN:
N/A
With the aim to encourage all designers to do the same, in this book What Design Can Do presents thirty-one creative activists who fight for positive change.
Author:
Arman Emami
Year published:
2014
ISBN:
9783721209150
The book comprises a comprehensive view of relevant matters relating to industrial design. Development steps from idea to mass production are described gradually and supported by illustrated examples of good practices. A working compendium not only for design students and young designers, but also a guide book for creative lateral thinkers, product and marketing managers and all those who are interested in intelligent design. Complex processes are displayed in an entertaining and easily understandable way.
Author:
Gabriel Patrocínio, José Mauro Nunes
Year published:
2015
ISBN:
978-85-212-1869-2
The book has contributions such as Victor Margolin, Gui Bonsiepe, Alpay Er, and Mugendi M’Rithaa, among many others. Authors offer their different perspectives coming from United States, Brazil, Colombia, United Kingdom, Turkey, Kenya, India and China. M’Rithaa, former President of WDO saluted the book as “the most important contribution on this field in the last ten years” (cited in the final remarks of his interview in the chapter Design in Africa: I participate, therefore I am). In Brazil the book was awarded twice – initially at the Objeto:Brasil International Design Award in May 2016, and again at the MCB (Museum of the Brazilian Home) 2016 Design Awards. The jury of this later has acclaimed the book as “a theoretical and academic milestone, with potential to change the current practice and understanding of Design.” After the successful launching in Brazil and Portugal in 2015 and 2016, the book was selected in 2017 to the exhibition Brasil: Hoje at MUDE, Lisbon’s Museum of Fashion and Design. The curator, Frederico Duarte, highlighted in the catalogue: “The first and indispensable book on design and development in the Portuguese language.” In 2018 the book was selected in Spain to be part of BID, the Ibero-American Design Biennial, in Madrid. A first e-book edition was launched in Portuguese (2018) and then in English (2019).
