• The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do by Clotaire Rapaille (Paperback – July 17, 2007)
• Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks by Luke Wroblewski (Paperback – Dec. 2008)
• Designing Design by Kenya Hara (Hardcover – July 23, 2007)
• Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss (Paperback – Nov. 1, 2003)
• Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable by Nathan Shedroff and Hunter Lovins (Paperback – 2009)
• Designers Don’t Read by Austin Howe and Fredrik Averin (Paperback – Sept. 22, 2009)
• Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and Lessons Learned by Steven Heller (Paperback – Oct. 28, 2008)

If you have any opinions on any of these listed, feel free to let me know.

Cheers,
D

I thought I’d let everyone know what I’m currently reading. Some really good stuff, albeit, some pretty heady stuff as well.

Art as Experience by John Dewey

I read about Art as Experience while reading a short book about Paul Rand. In the book Rand mentioned Dewey and his aforementioned work regarding aesthetic theory. Rand goes on to mention that anyone considering themselves a designer should read this book. Furthermore, he mentions that if you can get through the first chapter, the rest will be worth the challenge. With that, I began reading and found the book to be quite engaging. Again, very heady stuff, at least for me, but very thought provoking nonetheless. The first chapter, as Rand mentions, is a challenge as Dewey attempts to set the stage regarding modern societies compartmentalization of Art into a box (the modern museum) and out of it’s rightful place in society and as an expression of the people and their culture. Anyway, I’ll leave the rest up to you.

Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim

Another heady, but well worth the effort, read by one of the most notable thinkers in the area of perceptual psychology. Arnheim begins by challenging the early theories of visual perception dating back to Plato and Aristotle by arguing that the dichotomy between perception and reasoning is false and misleading. The rest, well, is history.

Designing Interaction by Bill Moggridge

Not the heady reads like the previous two books, Designing Interactions is a nice look at the authors involvement in the birth of a new design practice, eventually called “interaction design.” The book continues with interviews with other designers responsible for the development of the discipline. The title is a little misleading in that it’s not a book for those wishing to learn how to become interaction designers, but a book on the history of interaction design. All in all, a nice read.