Where to find rare and amazing design books

Are you sick of the gluttony of wretched design books cluttering the shelves at Borders and other megabookstores? Why not look to the past for inspiration. Many of my favorite design books were published before I was born, and unlikely to ever be printed again. To find these rare design gems from the past, you don’t have to live in a used bookstore. Just use my favorite bookhunting site, AddAll.

The site searches over 20,000 dealers worldwide, and since its not owned by a bookseller, AddAll claims their results and listings are unbiased.

I’ve been using AddAll faithfully since my design school years, and here are some of the classic hard-to-find titles I scored.

Compendium for Literates: A System of Writing by Karl Gerstner

Film Design by Peter Von Arx

Designing Programmes by Karl Gerstner

Thoughts on Design by Paul Rand

Design with Type by Carl Dair

I’m never ever parting with these until I die!