I love to read, and I love learning new things. So, here’s a short list of my favourite nonfiction books that relate to graphic design. They are engaging, illuminating, and nice to look at.
ON HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN
Humanize: A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World – Thomas Heatherwick
This is a great book even for non-readers, it’s pretty short but packs a punch. It has shaped my understanding of how we approach design—it discusses city planning, but ties in perfectly to graphic design. As I read this book, there was a lot of head-nodding. It perfectly explains things that a lot of us know but never really thought about in detail.
ON ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography: The Whole Story – edited by Juliet Hacking
I’ve had this book for years and I always come back to it. In addition to being a graphic designer, I’m a hobbyist photographer, but I think that whether you’re also a photographer, these arts are deeply intertwined. The photographs in this book are stunning and the essays/analyses are fascinating. I like to pull from the photographs for my moodboarding and artistic references.
ON MESSAGING THROUGH ILLUSTRATION
Cyclopedia Exotica – Aminder Dhaliwal
A witty, thought-provoking graphic novel that takes place in a fictional world where cyclops are oppressed by two-eyed people. This comic strips illustrate the daily lives of these groups living together. There’s so many connections to our world, in class, race, gender, disability, etc., and the art and characters are so charming.
ON BRINGING GRAPHIC DESIGN TO WORLDWIDE AFFAIRS
National Geographic magazine
Okay, technically this isn’t a book, but I had a subscription with the National Geographic magazine and I think it’s well worth it, even for just one year (12 issues in total). The typographic design is beautiful, and the illustrations and graphics are breathtaking. I also purchased the National Geographic History magazine, which is six issues per year, and though the paper is higher quality and the pictures are beautiful, I think the regular magazine is a better buy.
Molly Buccini 
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