My design bookshelves

I love, so much, a set of bookshelves cared for. Going through the collections of The Prelinger Library in San Francisco, The Museum of Printing in Haverhill, or an occasional personal library of a dear friend brings me so much joy: someone showed up with energy and curiosity, and found obscure volumes, embraced strange connections, and succumbed to unhealthy obsessions. I love a collection that’s comprehensive in one sense only: it fully represents a personality of its owner, with all the quirks and obsessions.

I will obviously be biased, but I also feel proud of my bookshelves covering user experience, product design, and all the niches within that I admire: less thought leadership, more pragmatic craft, less coffee-table posturing, more matte-paper typography.

I wanted to share these bookshelves with you, and do so in a way that feels at least a tiny bit like being there, and in a way that pays homage to many of these books meaning a lot to me. (I haven’t read them all, and I can’t claim all are even good – but at least all should be interesting.)

These are not all of my books: the computing history library, the typography library (smaller), and the keyboard library (larger) reside elsewhere, and I also removed some books by “fallen heroes” – let’s leave it at that.

I hope you enjoy! The bookshelves above are also available as a list.