For the curious
Book Corner.
A carefully curated shelf of books worth owning.
Reading order
Where to start.
Pick a subject. Each list opens with the book that lays the foundation, and every step says why it comes after the one before.
For founders and designers who want to build a brand on a clear strategy.
- 01
Positioning: The Battle for Your MindAl Ries & Jack TroutStart here, because every later step builds on its one idea, that a brand wins or loses a place in the customer's mind. - 02
Building a StoryBrandDonald MillerOnce you know the place you want to hold, Miller shows how to say it, casting the customer as hero and your brand as guide. - 03
The Brand GapMarty NeumeierWith a position and a message, Neumeier shows why strategy and design still fail each other, and gives five disciplines to close the gap. - 04
ZagMarty NeumeierNeumeier's next book turns the first of those disciplines, differentiate, into seventeen steps for finding a position no competitor holds. - 05
Designing Brand IdentityAlina WheelerWith the strategy written, Wheeler sets out the order an identity project runs in, and what each stage should hand over. - 06
Brand Thinking and Other Noble PursuitsDebbie MillmanFinish with Millman's interviews, where people who study brands disagree about what one is for, which tests every idea on this path.
Where design comes from
A third of this shelf is not about design at all. It is about craft, place, material and the people who made a thing the way they made it, because a colour, a pattern and a silhouette all came from somewhere before they arrived on a mood board, and knowing where is the difference between a reference and a lift.
11 traditions are on the shelf so far: Africa, Australia, China, India, Islamic world, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Morocco, Southeast Asia, The Pacific. This list names what is here rather than claiming to cover the world, and it will keep growing.
On the covers
The covers are the publishers’ own, shown at thumbnail size beside writing of ours and a link to buy the book, which is the standing any bookshop listing has. Nothing inside any of these books is reproduced here: no pages, no plates, no extracts.
That also means they are not part of the library’s rights log, which is only ever about the pictures inside the lessons and the licences they carry. Nobody here is a bookseller and nothing on this shelf is an affiliate link.