Designer Tips: Top 5 Books to Read

A great way to get ahead as a designer to keep yourself educated. A great way to continue learning is through books. Here, I have a list of books that you can read that may very well improve your design business when starting out.

1. Work for Money, Design for Love by David Airey

Author of “Logo Design Love”, David Airey created this book that answers a lot of basic questions about starting and managing a design business. The questions answered were based on the questions his followers would ask on his blogs. This book is written to be read easily without going too far in depth. It talks about what you should do in business as well as what you should not do in business. I would recommend this book not just to people in the design industry, but for anyone who is working independently.

2. Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton

A book I would recommend to both designers and editors, Thinking with Type teaches the basic laws of graphical lettering for both print and web. Typography is a subject that seems to be either overlooked oroverwhelming to beginning designers. This book does a great job giving tips for beginning designers as well as tips for more seasoned designers. This is a book that I keep near my desk as a guide for lettering.

3. HTML & CSS by Jon Duckett

Like Thinking with Type, HTML & CSS teaches the concepts of web building

quite well. This is a book I would recommend to anyone in business and to every designer.

Designers tend to avoid learning web because they find the coding aspect a bit too intimidating thus preventing them from increasing their value. This book is designed to be read both from start to finish and by “dips”. 

4. Contagious by Jonah Berger

A great book about what makes brands so memorable, Contagious is a great

book for designers because it talks about why people hang on and stick with

certain brands and products. One of the main objectives for designers is to

get an audience to connect with a brand or product. This book does a great

job in explaining how to do just that.

6. Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff

Pitch Anything is a book that talks about the science of persuasion. A great book for designers on how to present an idea to bosses, clients, and an audience. Persuasion is a key factor when it comes to executing a creative idea and this book will teach you what to do, how to do it, why to do it, etc.

These are books that I would recommend to a designer who is starting out in business, but please don’t limit to just these books. There are hundreds that will allow you to improve your skills. What are some books you would recommend? Please comment below.