Art Books, I

Recently I got to go to an art museum and to Anthropologie and other places with some friends (it was delightful!), and I kept running into neat artistic books along the way. I was able to pick up and hold some books that I'd seen online, and this reminded me of all the neat artistic books that there are in the world. I didn't buy any books, because if I had bought all the ones I wanted, it would have cost many $. But I took note of the ones I could remember, and I wanted to share them with you, along with some other graphic design and art books I've heard about on the internet.

So I thought I'd do a little weekend feature about art books. I'll post part one today, and parts two and three will follow on Saturday and Sunday. I hope you enjoy a peek at some of the books on my wish list!

1. Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara // Grid systems are big in graphic design and while I know basically nothing about them and this book looks way over my head, it looks good!

2. Just My Type by Simon Garfield // This looks like a book for a type nerd like me. Something that would be interesting to read—informative and fun.

3. Logo by Michael Evamy // This is an anthology of logos—it looks packed with lots of great logos.

4. Type Addicted // I know very little about this book, but it caught my attention because of the topic (typography!) and also because the sample images I saw on Amazon looked like they had some unusual type ideas shown.

5. Paul Rand by Steven Heller // I don't know anything at all really about Paul Rand's life so I'm not sure what this book says, but he did some excellent logo design and it would be interesting to learn about him.

6. Vignelli Canon by Massimo Vignelli // This is a book with designer Massimo Vignelli's rules and standards of good design—it seems like a great resource! Recommended by a designer who knows what he's talking about and available as a PDF.

7. Symbol by Angus Hyland // Similar to Logo, this is an anthology of symbols. Again, this seems like a vast resource!

Do any of these books jump out to you as being really cool?