Chanpory Rith
Jul 27, 2007
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!
8 Comments
Vincnet
12:19 pm
Another great place to get old design books (though it’s very hit-and-miss) is book sales. Most local library systems host book sales wherein they sell used books for literally pocket change.
Most people leave with entire boxes of books, but when I go, I head straight to the art/design section and pick and choose. I’ve found a few gems, including some old lettering and typography manuals from the sixties and seventies.
It must be said: I only recently subscribed to your blog and really like it so far. And the site’s good-looking enough that I leave the confines of my feed reader to see it!
jos
6:34 pm
very interesting, i am going to have to check out that site, everything at the “megastores” is so clique thanks for the tip :)
Jonathan
9:29 pm
Wow, what a great idea! I think we have all grown weary of current crop of design books at the big box retailers. I mean, how many Sagmeister books does one store need?!?
Chanpory
11:28 pm
Vincent, thanks for the extra tip about book sales. I’ve also had some luck with eBay, although it takes some diligence to patrol the listings. Thanks for being a reader!
Dennis
4:37 pm
Really jealous of that Paul Rand book :)
Eppel
3:21 pm
Thanks so much, I’ve been looking for Thoughts on Design for years!
LogoMotives
9:03 am
For several years I lived four block from Powell’s City of Books here in Portland – very dangerous for a book lover. I have always been able to find some great old design books there – and at powells.com
Jeremy
4:51 pm
Hi Chanpory. You have some real classics there. I have a first edition ‘Thoughts on Design’ and interestingly the interior page design is completely different, must have been a work in progress.
Also, note of caution. The 2007 Lars Muller edition of Design Programmes has been redesigned, and looks nothing like the original design shown in this post. In my opinion the redesign is just plain ugly, not what you would expect from Lars Muller.