For the past two and a half years, Designers & Books has been offering illuminating glimpses into the bookshelves and reading lives of designers ranging from David Adjaye to Eva Zeisel. The website that launched many a book-buying binge has just unveiled a redesign by Studio Kudos, with a host of new ways to browse and view the 170 lists and 1,700 listed books (and counting!), more frequent infusions of fresh editorial content (in partnership with Superscript), and even bigger plans for the future.

“One of the main things the site now stands for is the immense generosity of the design community,” founder and editor-in-chief Steve Kroeter tells us. “We ask world-renowned designers to take time out from their impossible schedules to talk to us about books—and they do it. Amazing!” Among the lists to watch for in the weeks to come are those of Anna Sui, Phyllis Lambert, Andre Leon Talley, and Michael Rock. In the meantime, we asked Kroeter to tell us more about the origins of Designers & Books, what’s next for the site, and of course, what’s on his reading list.

What led you to create Designers & Books?
Over the years I’ve visited many design studios, and one thing I’ve noticed about them all—whether it was an architect’s office or that of a fashion designer or graphic designer—is that books are always everywhere. Whether neatly shelved or scattered about randomly, books are everywhere. When you ask why, you find that designers look to books as sources of inspiration. Books to designers are fuel for creativity, innovation, and invention.

Given the widespread interest these days in creativity, it occurred to me that if I could get well known and respected designers to share the list of books that had inspired them, then there might be an idea in that, that could be developed. Books as a reliable and powerful source of inspiration for creativity—for the design community, yes. But also for everyone in general.

What are some of your favorite elements of the redesigned site?
When we started the site in 2011 just about all we did was book lists. Pretty quickly, though, we began to add many other features—which on the one hand was great, but it also made it increasingly difficult for site visitors to easily see what was new. Our updated design highlights what’s new in a clean, easy way and also neatly shows the full range of what we now offer.

In terms of specific features, we’ve launched what we believe is the first-ever best-seller list for design books—based on sales from 10 top design booksellers (with more to be added soon). We are also working with Debbie Millman on a special series of Design Matters podcasts with authors of design books. The first four of the series are now featured on the new site.
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But it does make for excellent fodder for discussions, film screenings, “interactive experiences,” and more thought-provoking happenings at New York’s Rubin Museum of Art. The reliably innovative cultural hub, the only museum in the United States dedicated to the Himalayan region, is now putting the finishing touches on “The Ignorance Series,” a fresh line-up of public programs that will explore how the unknown permeates our lives and impacts our perceptions of the world—at a time when it seems as if every answer is just a smartphone Google search away.
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Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” (1995-2009)

“I did that piece ["Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn"] truly as a joke. I had three cameras that I brought back to China. And the camera could take, like, five frames every second. And, like most things, I did it quick, no plan. People think everything’s planned, but it was spontaneous. We dropped one and we didn’t get it because the photographer was paying too much attention to this valuable vase. So we had to do another one. We had two of them. Then I forgot about those photos for a while. At that time, there were no galleries, no art. I never thought I would become an artist again, you know? I started collecting old Chinese cultural relics, like jade, bronze, beautiful things. I was a top expert on Chinese antiques. Few people had my skill. That’s what I did in the ’90s. On my résumé, I don’t have a show for more than 10 years. I don’t really have any work. I did my first art show after returning to China only in 2003, in Switzerland. But now those photos have become, like, iconic in a sense. But it’s kind of kitsch, huh?”

-Artist Ai Weiwei in an interview with Christoper Bollen in the August issue of Interview

(Courtesy Neue Galerie)

“The doctor should be opaque to his patients,” wrote Sigmund Freud, “and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.” Sounds like a job for a sweet pair of shades. The psychoanalyst’s signature round-framed specs get summer-ready with the Selima Optique Freud Sunshades (pictured), specially designed by Selima Salaun for New York’s Neue Galerie. The museum, which is devoted to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design, commissioned the limited-edition sunnies, and they are available exclusively at the Neue Galerie design shop and online store. The handmade polished tortoise frames, with UV400-protective green lenses, pair perfectly with the luxe leather glasses case from R. Horn: it’s an authorized reproduction of the case exhibited at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna. The dark green pebbled calf-skin exterior (superego?) conceals a cardinal red interior that is all id.

Once upon a time, creating signage involved more than Microsoft Word, 72-point Comic Sans, and an inkjet printer. Everything from storefronts to street signs were hand-lettered—with brush and paint. But all is not lost. Even as staid (and quick-and-dirty DIY) signage proliferates, there’s a revival afoot in traditional sign painting. Dedicated practitioners get their close-up in Faythe Levine and Sam Macon‘s Sign Painters, published last fall by Princeton Architectural Press. But with a subject as scintillating as hand-lettered signage, why stop at a book? The anecdotal history of the craft and stories of sign painters working in cities throughout the United States comes to the big screen in a documentary that is now making the rounds (next up: screenings in Orlando, New York, and Seattle). The trailer is bound to inspire you to drop that die-cut vinyl lettering:

Famed literary critic Lionel Trilling once described Henry James as a “social twitterer.” Sure, he meant it as an insult, but it makes us feel better about having signed up to twitter ourselves. Look to the UnBeige Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute newsbites, event snippets, links of interest, design trivia, and our exclusive photo of Rem Koolhaas in mid-ponder (it makes for smashing smartphone wallpaper). The mediabistro.com tech wizards have added to the sidebar at right a handful of our most recent word bursts, but you can sign up to follow all of our twittering, and start twittering yourself at twitter.com.

“In my project Miracles et Cie (2002) I settle my scores with the supernatural. My images are an ironic homage to the touching facet of the history of photography, which has been used to fake the presence of ghosts and spirits: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many crooks used photography’s powers of persuasion to ‘demonstrate’ their paranormal powers. But this work’s critical objective consists of an outrageous reflection on how the current whirlpool of beliefs, cults, rituals, and superstitions has set us adrift. Here, by using conjuring effects, photography becomes the document of the illusion.”

-Catalan artist Joan Fontcuberta, interviewed in Cabinets of Wonder by Christine Davenne (Abrams, 2012)

Pictured: Joan Fontcuberta, “The Miracle of Dolphinsurfing” (2002)

The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture are inspiring sourcebooks for the ages, but as with many authoritative, lushly illustrated volumes, it is impossible to fit them in one’s pocket, unless one has very special pants. Fear not, culture-conscious traveler, because Phaidon has just released The Phaidon Architecture Travel Guide App, an iPhone- or iPad-ready resource that’s yours for $3.99 from the iTunes store. With some 1,500 projects from 840 architectural practices (cherrypicked from both atlases), the app can be browsed by location, project, practice, and building type. Plus, the bookmarking options make it easy to create a “To See” list of architecture marvels around the globe. And travelers, take heart: no Wi-Fi or 3G is required to run the app.

Got an app we should know about? Drop us a line at unbeige [at] mediabistro.com

We first discovered the genius that is John Hodgman in late 2005, when we spent Christmas reading aloud to our family (and anyone else who would list) the lists of “hobo facts” and wacky state mottoes (e.g., Nebraska: “Birthplace of Unicameral Government!”) in The Areas of My Expertise. That inspired volume, the first in his since triumphantly completed trilogy of Complete World Knowledge, would go on to catalyze Hodgman’s transformation from a literary agent-turned-magazine writer to global renown as an author of fake trivia books, The Daily Show‘s resident deranged millionaire, judge, and most recently, star of his own Netflix special. In addition to the highly enertaining Judge John Hodgman Pocast, he adjudicates disputes (in 100 words or less) in a wee column of The New York Times Magazine, and his latest is a doozy:

Sophia writes: My father eats corn horizontally. I eat it in a circular motion. I believe that his way of eating is inefficient. Could you please issue an injunction stating that the proper way to eat corn is in a circular motion?
Your father eats corn that way because, as I do, he remembers what a typewriter is. It’s hard for us to see a roller-food and not proceed left to right before returning to the next line. Sometimes I even hear a bell ring. You dismantle your corn like a 3-D printer in reverse: vertical stack by vertical stack. Your argument from efficiency is specious, so I find in your father’s favor: I would rather look like Hemingway while eating than like some kind of mechanized chipmunk any day.

Ready to respond to requests of “Show me the data!” with more than a sad little bar graph? The Mediabistro mothership is now recruiting would-be data visualizers for an online course in infographics that can “engage an audience in your brand, cause, or mission.” Guided by veteran creative director Sascha Mombartz, whose resume includes stints at The New York Times and Google, students will get up to speed with online tools (we’re looking at you Many Eyes) and develop a robust spec for a data visualization. The infographical fun starts on September 17. Learn more here.