Join Us At the San Francisco Art Book Fair

In 1976, 10 years after his retirement from the practice of architecture, Barragan accepted the commission of two young publicists passionate about his architecture and designed the Giraldi House. This masterpiece was the last built project of Pritzker Prize winner Luis Barragan ́s prolific career.

Gilardi House aims to disseminate the complete history of the project, from the first sketch to its construction. It presents for the very first-time documents, plans, images, sketches and memories of distinguished visitors, ambitioning to shed light about this unpublished and largely unknown masterpiece and unique cultural establishment. This book not only unpacks original documentation of the project, but also includes critical reflections by contemporary architects and critics who have visited this private house, sharing a critical approach and a unique lesson for today’s architecture.

Born from his fascination with ancient architecture and a personal rediscovery of its beauty through materials such as wood, stone, earth and thatch, the aspiring architecture student Yukio Futagawa set out in the mid-1950s to photograph ‘minka’, the traditional rural houses of Japan. This experience would be instrumental in shifting...

Enamoured with the light of the Mediterranean sun, Can Lis, Jørn Utzon is a visual ode to one of the most iconic homes of the 20th century. An early ideal for design inspired by place, Can Lis rests on a Mallorcan cliff, nearly concealed by the marés stone from which...

Reyner Banham: A Set of Actual Tracks brings a contemporary critical lens to the work of Reyner Banham, one of the most prescient architectural and design critics of the 20th century.

Sixteen of the acerbic historian’s essays and book chapters have been selected by the book’s contributors, ranging from classics such...

Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914−1996) studied architecture, design and history of art in Zurich and worked as a graphic designer and teacher. His work is recognized for its simple designs and his clean use of fonts, shapes and colors, which still inspires many graphic designers throughout the world today. Since the 1950s...

Embark on a surprising and joyful visual tour of American mid-century modernism through hundreds of photographs, drawings, and pieces of ephemera organized by the art museum at Cranbrook, where the movement began. Essential figures such as Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll, and Eero Saarinen are represented alongside...

For decades, Walter Käch’s Lettering (1949) served as a vital handbook for practitioners and students of type design in Switzerland and beyond. Its lessons helped shape the distinctive forms and ethos of mid-century design, leading to the development of influential typefaces such as Univers and Helvetica. Until now, this historic type textbook has been notoriously out of print.
 
Käch was ahead of his time, and his suggestions remain relevant for our current age of Bezier curves and pixels. Today’s readers can learn by tracing: Käch taught designers how to look for elements in the construction of letters that could be modified and built upon, allowing for the smooth development of typeface families. One of the richest places to find these elements, for Käch, was the history of writing itself, and he encouraged his students to recycle past motifs to unlock new design potential.

Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull & Whitaker was established in Berkeley, California, in 1962. Soon after, the architects began working on The Sea Ranch, a large development on the northern California coast that runs from the ocean’s edge, with its protected beaches and cliffs, to a coastal meadow stretching the entire length...

Peter Saville is perhaps the most influential graphic designer of his generation. Best known for his seminal record covers for Joy Division and New Order, Saville has also art directed catalogues and advertisements for fashion brands such as Yohji Yamamoto and Dior, and created corporate identities for Givenchy, Mandarina Duck...

Co-authored by Amica Dall, Introduction by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Photographs by Jess Gough

‘Our current modus operandi can’t support the kinds of futures we envision for ourselves and those to come. As architects, builders, and citizens, we must urgently rethink our relationship to the land and to each other to produce new forms of material practice, culture, and economy in solidarity with people and our landscapes.’

This handsomely illustrated book goes beyond a discussion of the serif. Here you will find a new approach to the history, lineage, & development of our alphabet, a detailed explanation of letter cutting in stone, the manner in which the brush differs from all other writing tools, & the role...

Bruno Munari was among the most inspirational designers of all time, described by Picasso as “the new Leonardo.” Munari insisted that design be beautiful, functional and accessible, and this enlightening and highly entertaining book sets out his ideas about visual, graphic and industrial design and the role it plays in...

Sharp Type Volume 1 is the first comprehensive type specimen published by Sharp Type, a global type design studio. Showcasing some of the foundry’s most iconic fonts—including Ogg, Sharp Grotesk, Sharp Sans, Centra and Beatrice—the volume is a homage to the great lettering manuscripts and books that inspired so much...

In this project Gamper collected disused chairs from alleyways and friends' homes and reassembled them — one per day — into poetic and often humorous forms.

Sanzo Wada (1883-1967) was an artist, teacher, costume and kimono designer during a turbulent time in avant-garde Japanese art and cinema. Wada was ahead of his time in developing traditional and Western influenced colour combinations, helping to lay the foundations for contemporary colour research. Based on his original 6-volume work...

First published in 1996, The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory. It asks the far-reaching question why, when there are five senses, has one single sense – sight – become so predominant in architectural culture and design? With the ascendancy of the digital and the...

The landmark survey of Judd’s iconic spaces, featuring new drawing details, archival materials and more

This second expanded edition presents an unprecedented visual survey of the living and working spaces of the artist Donald Judd in New York and Texas. Filled with newly commissioned and archival photographs alongside five essays...

The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because...

If Paul Rand was the most influential American graphic designer of the twentieth century, then Paul Rand: A Designer’s Art is the most important on his work. A comprehensive collection of his most important and best-known designs, A Designer’s Art gives unique insight into Rand’s design process and theory. This...

In graphic designer and author Sam de Groot’s fable of modern parenting, psychoanalytic intrigue meets Aesopian Bildungsroman as we follow the tale of a boy and his fox. A story of soft orange paws and sharp teeth, Otto asks: How do we learn to understand our deepest emotion, what creatures...

On a farmlike compound near New Hope, Pennsylvania, George Nakashima, his family, and fellow wood-workers create exquisite furniture from richly grained, rare timber. Tables, desks, chairs, and cabinets from this simple workshop grace the homes and mansions and executive boardrooms of people who prize such excellence. In this lavishly illustrated...

More than three decades after its original publication, this new edition of Tokyo Style revives a cult classic and token collector’s item. Kyoichi Tsuzuki’s timeless photographs offer an intimate look at Tokyo homes as they are truly inhabited, presented here with a refreshed design that preserves the original book’s generous...

This book is the legacy of Emil Ruder, one of the originator of Swiss Style, famous throughout the world for the use of asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces and flush left, ragged right text. His holistic approach is still recognized as fundamental for graphic designers and typographers...

This lively introduction to Japanese joinery not only delves lovingly into the unique history and development of Japanese carpentry, but also reveals many secrets of Japanese joinery. Presenting 48 joints, selected from among the several hundred known and used today, this visually exciting book will please anyone who has ever...

An in-depth exploration spanning 800 years of the art, essence, and enduring impact of the Japanese garden.

The most comprehensive exploration of the art of the Japanese garden published to date, this book covers more than eight centuries of the history of this important genre. Author and garden designer Sophie...

‘Most arrangements are little noticed, yet some stop you in your tracks’. Originally published in 2003, Leonard Koren’s highly sought-after Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement utilises the language of rhetoric to portray visual arrangement as a ‘communicational act: its own language-like form of aesthetic expression’. Koren’s insightful meditation...

Discover 500 of the world’s greatest graphic designs in one big, bold, and brilliant volume

This deep dive into graphic design history presents the work of more than 400 designers across 33 countries and 5 continents, with work dating back to the 14th century.
Reimagined from the Phaidon best-seller Graphic: 500 Designs that Matter, the book’s dizzying array of designs range from the Gutenberg Bible to Joy Division album art, with work by both anonymous creators and industry icons such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Paul Rand, Paula Scher, Ahn Sang-soo, and Julia Born.

The generous format and two-part design structure allows designs to be shown in detail, with large images up front and a 300+ word text for each entry in the back – making this equal parts picture and reading book. A design category key adds functionality while indicating the sheer variety of disciplines at work within one medium, from advertising and information design to posters, books, magazines, and logos.
This book is the perfect reference guide for design and art lovers, enthusiasts, and professionals at any stage of their careers, as well as all those interested in and impacted by visual communication.

A collection of 1,000 symbols and logotypes designed by the Pentagram partners from 1967 to the present.

A well-honed mark is the cornerstone of any brand identity. There are many approaches to crafting a distinctive mark, and all of them are showcased here.
Originally produced in a limited print run by...

The 'Modernist Travel Guide' is a pocket-sized reference book written and photographed by design historian Adam Štěch, featuring nearly 400 of his favourite examples of modernist architecture across 30 major cities worldwide. Drawing from Štěch’s extensive archive of 150,000 photographs - documenting more than 6,000 buildings and interiors in 40...

The Arizona Type Specimen is a five color, split-page, spiral-bound showcase of ABC Arizona. This new blue, green, purple, orange, and brown variation is the book's second edition, released in 2024.

Designed by Elias Hanzer, ABC Arizona is the first ever sans-to-serif Variable Font that packages its five looks —...

Designing San Francisco is the untold story of the formative postwar decades when U.S. cities took their modern shape amid clashing visions of the future. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Alison Isenberg shifts the focus...

'The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but is partly its reasonableness, usefulness, and scale as a chair.’ 

Donald Judd Furniture includes more than one hundred pieces of his furniture, spanning 1970 to 1991, designed for his living and working spaces at 101 Spring Street and in...

In the world of typography, it is not uncommon to see combinations of serif and sans serif typefaces in the same design. However, it takes skill to combine them in a way to avoid unwanted graphic tension or clashing fonts, and ensure maximum legibility of the text in the design.

From...

In the world of typography, it is not uncommon to see combinations of serif and sans serif typefaces in the same design. However, it takes skill to combine them in a way to avoid unwanted graphic tension or clashing fonts, and ensure maximum legibility of the text in the design.

From...

Known for their bold impressions characterized by strategic bars and openings, stencil fonts are more than just fonts seen on spray-painted shipping crates, military-inspired paraphernalia or street art. Instead, they are an expressive type family that emphasize spacing, size, and arrangement to create impactful and dynamic text elements, often with...

Renowned for their bold and attention-grabbing nature, display fonts are a brand’s go-to if it is looking to stand out visually in a sea of competition. Known for their intricate details, expressive style, playful elements, and varied weights, they are adaptable across diverse design contexts, seamlessly integrating into print, digital,...

Love Letters is a selection of 46 envelopes for the letters that Dutch graphic designer Karel Martens sent to his love, Lous, between 1962 and 1963.

The envelopes were all manually crafted using printing ink and a spoon to create the pattern. Printed during his military service, when Martens was stationed...

Since the modern beehive was patented in 1852, the alternative techniques for tending bees prior to this homogenization have been overlooked. Using an array of archival images, this book uncovers the forgotten history of hive innovation, offering a renewed perspective to challenge conventional narratives and encourage speculation and curiosity.

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In the early 1960s, Italian design legend Bruno Munari published his visual case studies on shapes: Circle, Square, and, a decade later, Triangle. Using examples from ancient Greece and Egypt, as well as works by Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier, and Alvar Aalto, Munari invests the three shapes with specific qualities:...

White is not a book about colors. It is rather Kenya Haras attempt to explore the essence of “White”, which he sees as being closely related to the origin of Japanese aesthetics – symbolizing simplicity and subtlety. The central concepts discussed by Kenya Hara in this publication are emptiness and...

Mysterious Letters is a private investigation into the unsolved mysteries surrounding the Voynich Manuscript. The manuscript is considered to be a “UFO of a book world” as it was written in an unknown language and script, in an unknown location in the 15th century. The book features interviews and essays...

Comme des Garçons Parfums is happy to celebrate its thirty years of excellent and progressive scents and design. The entire collection of pebbles, series, special editions and collaborations is presented here for the first time, together with the packaging and hilarious printed matter. Never the same twice, never looking back....

Author Dorothea Hofmann reveals a highly differentiated picture of the Swiss direction in graphic design in this history of the “Schweizer Grafik” from a new perspective. Characterized by its undogmatic viewpoints, the courage to experiment, and a clear relationship to the modern, the Basel Educational Model is an important forerunner...

Parks, our second title with photographer Brian Kelley, is a collection of over 300 United States national park maps, ephemera, and brochures spanning over 100 years.

Part of an ongoing project, Kelley collects oft-overlooked objects within the Parks Service. The book showcases nearly a century of art, cartography, and printed materials...

Does designing a book follow a logical and well- thought-out process? Swiss graphic designer and typographer Jost Hochuli studies the crucial role played by instinct throughout the various stages of planning a book, from selecting a character type and size to determining the layout of the block of texts.

This is Dieter Rams’s 808-page book about his work, back in print in its original form with a PVC softcover and slipcase. The relevance of famous Braun designer Dieter Rams in modern design remains unbroken.

In his more than 40 years at Braun, Rams established himself as one of the...

ABC Stefan is an artist-specimen-accordian-book hybrid designed by Dinamo and veryes, which examines what it means to take something as personal as an artist’s handwriting and make it accessible for others to use. Published to celebrate the release of ABC Stefan — a digitization of the artist Stefan Marx’s personal...

Tools magazine is the brainchild of Clémentine Berry, who also founded the Twice art direction studio in Paris. This annual publication aims to simultaneously promote and investigate the details of manufacturing techniques and expertise used in art, design, interior architecture, industry and trade. Each issue focuses on a particular technique...

At the end of the nineteenth century, population, information, and technology explosions made Manhattan a laboratory for the invention and testing of a metropolitan lifestyle - "the culture of congestion" - and its architecture. "Manhattan," he writes, "is the 20th century's Rosetta Stone . . . occupied by architectural mutations...