Best Design Books of 2025

Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte is a celebration of complex data displays that escape the limitations of paper and computer screens. The book features a diverse range of maps, charts, scientific presentations, diagrams, and more, providing practical advice on how to explain complex material visually. The book is beautifully illustrated and well-argued, winning 17 awards for design and content. A remarkable range of examples for the idea of visual thinking, Envisioning Information is a real treat for all who reason and learn by means of images.

Art Fundamentals: Theory and Practice by McGraw-Hill Education is a comprehensive textbook that has set the standard for art foundations courses across the country. It covers the essential elements of art and the rich and varied history of their uses. The book is organized to assist with “knowing” and “feeling” the fundamental concepts of refined creation, and it stimulates without locking students into a restricted mind-set or mechanical copying of ideas. Overall, this is a must-read for anyone interested in design books, and it provides a unique approach to learning the art fundamentals.

The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art beyond Solidarity is a groundbreaking book that presents a new method of writing art history through the language of geometry. Author Joan Kee explores the relationship between Black and Asian artists and the worlds they create through their work, spanning across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The book breaks down this relationship and chronology into points, angles, and trajectories, offering new ways of seeing how artworks shape our lives and politics. Overall, this book provides a unique and insightful perspective on art history and the relationships between different cultures and artists.

Art Since 1900: Volume 1: 1900 to 1944; Volume 2: 1945 to the Present is a comprehensive history of art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, written by five influential art historians. The book introduces students to the key theoretical approaches to modern and contemporary art and offers a flexible structure for studying art history by medium, theme, country, or region. The third edition includes over 125 essays, ten of which are new, covering subjects such as Moscow conceptualism, postmodern architecture, and queer art. The book also features roundtable discussions between the authors and updated reference material. Overall, this book is a valuable resource for students and art enthusiasts alike.

Black Acting Methods is an essential resource for anyone interested in theatre arts seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre. The book offers alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles and presents afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. The contributors include distinguished artists and practitioners as well as serious academic minds, making it a must-read for our times. The book is a gift for theatre artists and artist-scholars, offering a reunification of thought as much as embodied methods of doing.

The 4th edition of Patternmaking for Fashion Design is a comprehensive guide for anyone developing their patternmaking skills. The book covers the three major patternmaking and design principles and provides all the necessary information to create design patterns with accuracy regardless of their complexity. The updated jacket foundation draft includes fabric preparation, interfacing, chest piece, tape control, and shoulder pads. Additionally, the book includes unique sections on patternmaking for bias-cut garments and fitting corrections for the basic patterns. Overall, this book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in fashion design and patternmaking.

African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis is a comprehensive and updated overview of the works and lives of African American artists from the eighteenth century to the present. The book covers a broad range of art forms, including traditional media, installation art, mixed media, and digital/computer art. It is generously illustrated, revealing the rich legacy of work by African American artists, which now resides in major private and national and international museum collections. This publication is a must-read for art enthusiasts interested in the subject matter.

The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators by Michael Rothberg is a thought-provoking book that challenges traditional notions of political responsibility and accountability. Rothberg argues that we are all implicated in historical violence and contemporary inequality, and that the categories of victim, perpetrator, and bystander are not sufficient to address this connection. Drawing on a range of global histories and texts, including archives, cultural texts, and activist movements, Rothberg offers a new theory of political responsibility through the figure of the implicated subject. This book is a significant contribution to the field of violence in society books, and a must-read for those interested in the politics and ethics of remembrance in our time.

This comprehensive book, titled "Signs and Symbols in Christian Art," is an authoritative source for the study of symbols in Christian art. The book includes three hundred fifty illustrations and a complete text that explores the symbolism inherent in representations of religious personages, animals, birds, insects, and flowers. The author, George Ferguson, also delves into the symbolic representation of Old Testament characters and events in art. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the meaning behind Christian art and its symbols.

A Picture Gallery of the Soul is an extraordinary collection of over 100 Black American artists whose work incorporates photography. The book celebrates the ways in which photography has documented Black American life and culture, and how Black Americans have shaped the possibilities of photography. From traditional photography to mixed media and conceptual art, this group exhibition samples a range of photographic expressions produced over three centuries. The author, Howard Oransky, skillfully highlights the diverse visions of Blackness made manifest through the lens of photography. Overall, this book is a vivid and moving celebration of Black American art and culture.