Design Book Wish List
If you have been following along for a while, you know I LOVE design books. I listen to Ariel Okin’s podcast and always want to be invited on specifically to do her rapid-fire questions at the end of each episode. Favorite Movie? Pitch Perfect. Favorite Hotel? Prefer airbnb. Favorite Design Book? Hands down New York Living by Lisa Lovatt-Smith, circa 1999. This book was a window into so many types of homes and lifestyles, all of them so personal and unique. The interiors largely belong to creatives and I love that their incredibly specific points-of-view make their homes transcend time and trend. I owned and cherished this book for decades before getting into the world of interior design.
Every year since starting my business I have posted a wish list on the blog. Every year the list includes design books and every year my wonderful Aunt Eileen sends me one for my birthday.
I’m approaching the wish list a little differently this year, focusing on our studio Signature Style with fun shoppable ideas by categories we love. But to kick things off, I give you the many design books I am hoping to read in the new year.
Given my love for peeks inside the interior worlds of creative types, I’m looking forward to New York Interiors and Inside the Homes of Artists. I’m also intrigued by What We Keep, given my general interested in, well, what we keep. I loosely add Interiors Styled by Mieke ten Have to this list, as the book is sure to be a compedium of work by some of the most talented designers working today, as seen through the lens of an interiors stylist at the top of her game.
Categorically I am a huge fan of monographs of individual designers, and there are new books out from Ashe Leandro, a New York-based duo whose work I love, as well as Isabel Lopez-Quesada, whose effortless style is captured in an earlier book that I own and adore. Somehow I missed the Robert Stilin book a number of years ago and have been meaning to pick it up ever since. Veere Grenney is one of the greats; I learn so much every time a project of his is published, I imagine this book will be like a master class in design. Luke Edward Hall is a young British multi-hyphenate creative with such a wonderful sense of curiosity, I’m sure his book will inspire on many levels, including actual book design.
I also like books that explore a single category from different angles, and I loved Sophie Donelson’s run as Editor in Chief of House Beautiful, so her book Uncommon Kitchens is high on my list. As a team we are thinking a lot these days about how to make kitchens more special while remaining practical and infusing them with longevity. I’m sure this book will inspire us on that mission.
Finally, I love an inconoclast. I had never heard of Wharton Esherick but one peek inside the pages of this book and I want to know everything about the worlds he created. On the other hand, Leanne Ford is rather ubiquitous, with a TV show (super charming!), a magazine (lovely and off-kilter), and a furniture collection with Crate and Barrel. I appreciate how she does her own thing AND has so much success, and I’m eager to read The Slow Down, about her intentional move into a fixer-upper dream home that brought her across the country and into a slower way of life.