 | Understanding Design: 175 Reflections on Being a Designer by Kees Dorst
Buy new: $18.96 / Used from: $17.96 a good place to start. 175 short (single page) essays. very nicely organized.
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 | By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons by Ralph Caplan
Buy new: $30.09 / Used from: $7.95 a much recommended classic, recently reissued.
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 | Becoming a Product Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design by Bruce Hannah
Buy new: $31.56 / Used from: $24.38 good introduction to the field of product design and design education. has lots of interviews with prominent designers and educators.
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 | Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell
Buy new: $26.40 / Used from: $21.99 excellent short summaries of design concepts from many disciplines.
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 | The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $9.97 not just for kids. very approachable with wonderful illustrations and explanations of mechanical things. his other books are excellent too. (Building Big, etc...)
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 | Rapid Viz: A New Method for the Rapid Visualitzation of Ideas by Kurt Hanks
Buy new: $9.92 / Used from: $5.50 learn to get the ideas out of your head with this approachable book on quick sketching
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 | Objects of Design: The Museum of Modern Art by Bevin Cline
Buy new: $28.25 / Used from: $4.95 MoMA's influential take on great design.
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 | Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design by Paola Antonelli
Buy new: $17.16 / Used from: $3.15 MoMA again. Post-its, paperclips, etc...
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 | Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough
Buy new: $18.15 / Used from: $10.98 about the future. essential.
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 | Massive Change by Bruce Mau
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $12.00 "not about the world of design; it's about the design of the world."
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 | Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design by Michael F. Ashby
Buy new: $37.97 / Used from: $21.99 excellent, visual summaries of materials and processes for designers
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 | Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen
Buy new: $24.75 / Used from: $4.88 see also their great website/blog: http://www.worldchanging.com/
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 | The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Buy new: $7.97 / Used from: $2.35 great book. the new yorker article that preceded it is at gladwell.com
Blink is good too
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 | Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises by Architecture for Humanity
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $20.00 |
 | Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the Structure of Visual Relationships by Gail Greet Hannah
Buy new: $14.93 / Used from: $9.22 classic excercises for form development in product design. from the ID program at Pratt Institute.
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 | Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
Buy new: $28.35 / Used from: $18.30 founder of IDEO knows
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 | Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets) by Bruce Sterling
Buy new: $9.74 / Used from: $5.76 "Shaping Things is about created objects and the environment, which is to say, it's about everything," writes Bruce Sterling
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 | Thoughtless Acts?: Observations on Intuitive Design by Jane Fulton Suri
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $9.79 what we do without thinking, (Suri is from IDEO)
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 | Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change by Victor Papanek
Buy used from: $23.24 |
 | How Designers Think, Third Edition by Bryan Lawson
Buy used from: $4.46 |
 | The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda
Buy new: $14.28 / Used from: $11.38 the first few laws are on his blog: http://lawsofsimplicity.com/category/laws?order=ASC
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 | Information Anxiety 2 (Hayden/Que) by Richard S Wurman
Buy used from: $15.95 how to make sense of this crazy world.
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 | The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
Buy new: $10.79 / Used from: $3.77 about avoiding overload.
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 | Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Buy new: $11.51 / Used from: $2.75 you want to enjoy it, right?
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 | Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small by Barry Nalebuff; Ian Ayres
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $4.54 why not?
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 | Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years by Bruce Sterling
Buy new: $11.21 / Used from: $3.99 |
 | Industrial Design: Materials and Manufacturing by Jim Lesko
Buy used from: $37.73 good breakdown of manufacturing processes and materials for industrial designers.
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 | Manufacturing Processes Reference Guide by Dell Allen
Buy new: $42.04 / Used from: $15.99 approachable brief explanations of manufacturing processes
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 | Green Plastics: An Introduction to the New Science of Biodegradable Plastics. by E. S. Stevens
Buy new: $36.00 / Used from: $30.66 |
 | Toothpicks and Logos: Design in Everyday Life by John Heskett
Buy used from: $6.70 |
 | The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $5.19 classic on usability.
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 | Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein
Buy new: $18.48 / Used from: $11.03 |
 | MAKE: Technology on Your Time
Buy new: $34.95 fun, DIY, hacking
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 | Skin: Surface, Substance, and Design by Ellen Lupton
Buy new: $23.50 / Used from: $4.66 |
 | Collapsible: The Genius of Space-Saving Design by Per Mollerup
Buy used from: $3.87 |
 | Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design by Henry Petroski
Buy new: $11.21 / Used from: $5.07 |
 | Our Own Devices: The Past and Future of Body Technology by Edward Tenner
Buy used from: $0.01 |
 | Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (Vintage) by Edward Tenner
Buy new: $14.35 / Used from: $0.06 |
 | Talent Is Not Enough: Business Secrets For Designers by Shel Perkins
Buy new: $26.39 / Used from: $20.24 |
Listmania!
