Let's be honest: with google at our fingertips, and the need to step into a physical library almost obsolete to some professions, books certainly seem like an old and outdated idea.
People often think their best bet at a place to find inspiration are online sources like Dribble, Google, Pinterest, Awwwards, etc. When in fact, the opposite is true. Many young designers do not look for inspiration in books, or any print materials for that matter.
We need to bring books back into education and inspiration.
There are so many reasons why reading design books is important. One of them being to the point I made earlier, not many young people are finding inspiration in books. This alone means you are looking for inspiration in a place most people are not — with this logic your work is bound to stand out to employers or clients.
There is also a lot of shit on the internet. Can I say shit in a blog post? Well I'm going to, there is a lot of shit. If you are a young designer, you are still learning right from wrong. How can you be 100% certain a design is successful if it's thrown on a random site like google images or pinterest, where anyone is free to upload anything? If a design is published in a book that had to have gone through several reviews and revisions, there is no doubt that in some way the design is successful.
Books also are tangible things that can give your eyes a break from screens, and unlock new ideas through feeling the pages and print of the ink.
One of my favorite places to find good design books is university bookstores. I recently visited Harvard University in Boston, MA, and bought several books to add to my collection. Here are a few:
1. Things We Create by Axel Brechensbauer
2. Free Hand: New Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller
3. Duotone: Limited Colour Schemes in Graphic Design by Wang Shaoqiang
Go out to your local book store and buy one design book, and start building your collection today! Before you know it, you will have more books than you know what to do with!
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