Best Design Books

Magritte Assouline Book (15 COPIES LEFT)

February 18, 2014

BY PIERRE STERCKX René Magritte’s use of graphic, everyday imagery had an indelible influence on pop artists from Jasper Johns to Andy Warhol. Presenting all the major works of this legendary surrealist painter, this magnificent volume is unquestionably one of the most beautiful ever published on Magritte. Written by the notable Belgian critic and author Pierre Sterckx, this limited edition is presented inside a luxurious slipcase featuring a Magritte reproduction.

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Lifestyle

Limited Edition: Coca-Cola Set of Three: Film, Music, Sports

February 17, 2014

I am impressed about this limited-edition set in a unique sculpted ice slipcase lauched by Assouline. I am sure It is a must-have accessory not only for collectors of Coca-Cola memorabilia but also for lovers of American culture everywhere. For over a century Coca-Cola has been a touchstone of modern culture and a global icon. First sipped at an Atlanta soda fountain, the beverage has become an instantly recognizable symbol around the world, woven into people’s lives and memories. This newest addition to Assouline’s best-selling Memoire collection, Coca-Cola: Film, Music, Sports celebrates the iconic brand’s broad-reaching influence in the domains of film, music, and athletics. With imagery of some of these industries’ most revered names, and forewords penned by Ridley Scott, Quincy Jones, and LeBron James, these volumes explore the beverage’s prominence in some of the greatest films of all time, its inspiration for legendary musicians of all genres, and its motivational support of athletes from the Olympics to professional sports. Limited to 1,000 copies Specifications: Film foreword by Ridley Scott Music foreword by Quincy Jones Sports foreword by LeBron James

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Lifestyle

Valentine’s Day Gift for Him and Her – Assouline Books

February 13, 2014

Want to buy a gift for Valentine’s Day? A book is always a good suggestion to offer to your beloved ones. For a special day two special books that you will love. For Her – The Allure of Beauty Karen Durbin, film critic for Elle magazine, in association with Assouline made a book “The Allure of beauty. The book celebrates Hollywood’s legendary actresses from the 1930s to the present. From Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich to Anita Ekberg and Julia Roberts, each page of this vibrant anthology radiates with provocative images of unforgettable faces and moments that have forever changed the place of women in Hollywood as well as in our culture. Elle magazine film critic Karen Durbin delves into the history of Hollywood, highlighting females who have proven their femininity, strength, and talent. The glitzy narrative accompanies a carefully researched, sexy selection of photography that captures the individuality of each woman. “Provocative images of a unforgettable faces and moments that have forever changed the place of women” For Him – The impossible Collection Cars Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive for The Wall Street Journal, wrote the book of the year for the automobile collector. The…

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Interior Design

Shiro Kuramata Phaidon Book

February 11, 2014

First-ever complete monographon influential Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata (1934–91) comes in two volumes and specially designed acrylic slipcase. Shiro Kuramata (1934–91) was a truly exceptional designer of furniture and interiors. Many of his poetic, precise and unique pieces, like the expanded-metal-mesh How High the Moon Armchair and the acrylic, aluminium and paper-flower Miss Blanche Chair, are still highly prized, collected by museums like MoMA and the V&A and sold at auction. Sadly, however, most of the hundreds of interiors he designed no longer exist, and can only be glimpsed in photographs or described by those who saw them. This combination of the precious and the disappeared is appropriate for a designer like Kuramata, whose work was neither modern nor nostalgic, neither western nor Asian, but which has a remarkable creative power as well as a sense of endless invention. This compelling and highly influential work is documented here in this beautiful monograph. Author Deyan Sudjic, the director of the design museum in London and the author of many highly-acclaimed books on design and architecture, tells the story of Kuramata’s life against the backdrop of Japan’s turbulent history from the 1930s to the 1990s. It was a period in which the collapse…

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Art

BUILDING SEAGRAM by Phyllis Lambert – Design Book of the Year

January 14, 2014

The winner of the first annual Designers & Books Design Book of the Year Award (2013) is Phyllis Lambert with Building Seagram. Phyllis is Founding Director Emeritus of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The book, published by Yale University Press , portrays a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of New York’s Seagram Building, one of the most iconic buildings of the 20th century, designed by Mies van der Rohe. Seagram was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson and is a masterpiece of the International Style and corporate modernism. Constructed in 1958 on New York Park Avenue, Seagram established the dominant style for American skyscrapers built during the following decades. Lambert established her role as a leading architectural patron and singlehandedly changed the face of American urban architecture. Building Seagram is a comprehensive personal and scholarly history of a major building and its architectural, cultural, and urban legacies. The architect use of previously unpublished personal archives, company correspondence, and photographs to tell an insider’s view of the debates, resolutions, and unknown dramas of the building’s construction, as well as its crucial role in the history of modern art and architectural culture. She is one of the great architectural patrons of the…

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Art

Dezeen Book of Ideas

January 2, 2014

“Dezeen Book of Ideas”, a collection of brilliant ideas in design and architecture. This book is filled with amazing ideas, concepts, and revolutionary products that will blow your mind. I’m always found scouring the website Dezeen, a site that encapsulates some of the most carefully chosen design and architecture projects from around the world. After it launched in November of 2006, it became one of the most popular sites on the web. They have won several publishing and business awards. All the examples in the book have been selected from thousands of products on the Dezeen website. I most certainly recommend both the website and the book as they will open up your mind and inspire you thoroughly.

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Interior Design

Fifty Years of American Interior Decoration of Mario Buatta

December 26, 2013

The eagerly anticipated first monograph to celebrate the fifty-years-and-counting career of decorating legend Mario Buatta. Influenced by the understated elegance of Colefax and Fowler and the doyenne of exuberant American decor, Sister Parish, Buatta reinvented the English Country House style stateside for clients such as Henry Ford II, Barbara Walters, Malcolm Forbes, and Mariah Carey, and for Blair House, the President’s guest quarters. The designer is acclaimed for his sumptuous rooms that layer fine antiques, confectionary curtains, and sublime colorations, creating an atmosphere of lived-in opulence. This lavishly illustrated survey—filled with images taken for the foremost shelter magazines as well as many unpublished photographs from the designer’s own archive—closely follows Buatta’s highly documented career from his professional start in the 1950s working for department store B. Altman & Co. and Elisabeth Draper, Inc. to his most recent projects, which include some of the country’s finest residences. Buatta shares exclusive insights into his process, his own rules for decorating, and personal stories of his adventures along the way.

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FASHION

150 YEARS, Couturiers, Designers, Labels

December 19, 2013

“Fashion – 150 Years” is an encyclopedic work, not only in content but in size and weight. Fashion is taken from about the mid 1800s to the present. Seeling locates the beginnings of modern fashion about 1860 when the English clothing designer Charles Frederick Worth working in Paris put labels with his signature on the gowns he designed. Seeling sees this as turning clothing–however ornamental, stylized, or individualized–into art–Worth was the first “fashion designer.” Since Worth’s innovative touch, there have been scores of outstanding fashion designers–all of whom make their appearance. The history of fashion from the mid 1860s is related in terms of profiles of the leading, most imaginative and skilled, most influential, and often most acclaimed fashion designers accompanied by abundant photographic material. One could follow the history just by following the copious, most color photographs. One sees how fashion spread out from its beginnings in Paris to the global, popular enterprise it is today. But one wants to read the profiles too for their colorful biographical material and ideas and approaches to fashion, and for putting the respective designer into the context of fashion history. Seeling has been a top editor at Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Marie Claire…

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Lifestyle

Christmas gift guide: 5 must-have graphic design books

December 17, 2013

Want to buy a gift for a graphic designer (or give someone a hint about what you’d like)? Then check out this list of must-have books. We don’t want to freak you out, but Christmas is just round the corner. But if you can’t think what to buy a friend, relative or colleague who’s into design, then you’ve come to the right place. Invest in any one of these superlative books on graphic design, and they’ll love you forever. And hey, you might want to pick up one or two for your own enjoyment too. 01. Love Song by Non-Format An iconic studio for the modern age, Non-Format is a fruitful transatlantic collaboration between Oslo-based Kjell Ekhorn and US-based Brit Jon Forss. This 2007 monograph is packed with awe-inspiring imagery and insight into the duo’s creative process over five years between 1999 and 2003, from advertising work for Coke and Nike to stunning art direction for The Wire magazine. 02. Just My Type by Simon Garfield Graphic designers are trained to look at type faces, but Garfield’s book will encourage you to look closer. A well chosen font communicates to the reader on an almost subliminal level and it can…

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Art

21st century design by Marcus Fairs

December 12, 2013

If you’re looking for design-related Christmas presents, this makes the perfect gift, etc etc! Twenty-First Century Design is an overview of design at the start of the new millennium, presenting over 200 of the most important buildings, interiors, products, furnishings and lights from the last few years. With a forward written by Marcel Wanders and lavish colour photos over more than 450 pages, the book also has chapters on clothing, landscape and urban design, graphics and homeware. The book was published in October last year. Frame magazine’s reviewer called it “a 463-page encyclopaedia of cutting-edge design” and added it was “worth the design aficionado’s time and money” (see the full review at the bottom of this page), while Architecture Review described it as “an entertaining romp.” In its review, the Daily Telegraph said “Marcus Fairs knows a thing or two about design.” This beautiful book is an exuberant manifesto defining the design zeitgeist at the start of the twenty-first century, charting the bewildering array of new movements and styles that have erupted over the last few years. It essentially sets the scene for a dramatic transformation in the way design is perceived that will influence the objects and buildings that…

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FASHION

Louis Vuitton – The birth of modern luxury

December 10, 2013

The first in-depth portrait of one of the world’s best-known luxury brands, this elegant volume traces the remarkable history of the House of Vuitton, which has been making practical but stylish luggage, handbags, and accessories for more than 150 years. Written with full access to the company’s archives, the book itself demonstrates Louis Vuitton’s passion for fine design in a stunning array of archival art, historical images, product designs and sketches, and cutting-edge advertising. Author Paul-Gerard Pasols, former communications director and longtime consultant to Louis Vuitton, explores the company’s tradition of quality and innovation in the context of sweeping changes in society, art, culture, fashion, and, above all, travel. Examining the life and times of the company’s first three leaders-founder Louis (who invented the modern trunk), his son Georges, and his grandson Gaston-the text focuses on the firm’s development under their guidance. It also discusses Vuitton’s explosive growth toward the end of the 20th century, including the 1987 merger with Mokt-Hennessy that made it part of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company, and spurred the expansion of its boutiques to more than 300 locations in 50 countries around the globe.

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