Books that make better designers

A list of books that, as a designer, you may not have come across but that contain potentially career-defining material.

This isn’t your usual list of design books. You won’t find anything by Don Norman, there’s nothing here about mobile-first design or usability testing, there’s nothing about UX strategy — if that’s a thing at all.

What you will find are indispensable books with topics on creative and innovative thinking, building trust as an elemental tactic, understanding psychology and how business strategy really works. These will hopefully, like they did for me, change the way you view design in your organisation, how to operate more effectively in a team and develop your business sense as an individual designer.

There’s only one book here regarding visual design technique and it’s an absolute fundamental read for anyone working on interfaces today. Jan Tschichold and other greats of early graphic design were experimenting with grids, whitespace and typography back in the early 20th century. Their foundational work still impacts the decisioning making of designers today, without them even knowing it. If you can find a copy, buy it.

There is a loose order to this list that aims to develop your understanding as you read through it. It starts by going fairly broad with Tina Seelig’s book, one that opens our minds to their full entrepreneurial potential. Then it quickly narrows down to focus on building trust and how to effectively give and receive developmental feedback.

After that we then jump to the 1920s for Jan’s foundational design techniques and then through to the 1970s for creative problem solving. Next is a great book on understanding foundational psychology, specifically the power of persuasion. We finish up with the best book I’ve read on strategy, one that contains many real life business examples that expertly articulate the power of a well executed strategy.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
by Tina Seelig

“Seelig throws out the old rules and provides a new model for reaching our potential. We discover how to have a healthy disregard for the impossible; how to recover from failure; and how most problems are remarkable opportunities in disguise. These pages are filled with captivating examples, from the classroom to the boardroom, of individuals defying expectations, challenging assumptions, and achieving unprecedented success.”

The Speed of Trust
by Stephen M. R. Covey

“Trust, says Stephen M. R. Covey, is the very basis of the 21st century’s global economy, but its power is generally overlooked and misunderstood. Covey shows you how to inspire immediate trust in everyone you encounter — colleagues, constituents, the marketplace — allowing you to forego the time-killing and energy-draining check and balance bureaucracies that are so often relied upon in lieu of actual trust.”

Thanks for the Feedback
by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen

“We know that feedback is essential for professional development and healthy relationships — but we dread it and even dismiss it. That’s because while want to learn and grow, we also want to be accepted just as we are. Thanks for the Feedback is the first book to address this tension head on. In it, the world-renowned team behind the Harvard Negotiation Project offer a simple framework and powerful tools, showing us how to take on life’s blizzard of comments and advice with curiosity and grace.”

Die Neue Typographie
by Jan Tschichold

“The New Typography remains essential reading for designers, art historians, and all those concerned with the evolution of visual communication in the twentieth century. Since its initial publication in Berlin in 1928, Jan Tschichold’s The New Typography has been recognised as the definitive treatise on book and graphic design in the machine age.”

The Use of Lateral Thinking
by Edward de Bono

“In schools we are taught to meet problems head-on: what Edward de Bono calls ‘vertical thinking’. This works well in simple situations — but we are at a loss when this approach fails. What then? Lateral thinking is all about freeing up your imagination. Through a series of special techniques, in groups or working alone, Edward de Bono shows how to stimulate the mind in new and exciting ways.”

Techniques of Persuasion
by J.A.C Brown

“Attempts to change the opinions of others are as old as human speech, but in recent years we have come to fear that our thoughts and feelings are open to manipulation by the new methods and hidden techniques. Here is a timely and much needed survey of the whole area of persuasion ranging from political propaganda, religious conversion, and commercial advertising, through a detailed appraisal of the intentions and effects of the mass media to a cool look at the case histories of indoctrination and confession.”

Playing to Win
by A.G. Lafley, Roger L. Martin

“Strategy is not complex. But it is hard. It’s hard because it forces people and organisations to make specific choices about their future — something that doesn’t happen in most companies. Now two of today’s best-known business thinkers get to the heart of strategy — explaining what it’s for, how to think about it, why you need it, and how to get it done. And they use one of the most successful corporate turnarounds of the past century, which they achieved together, to prove their point.”

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