Chock full of design inspiration (the fourth and final part)
For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the books on my studio bookcase, why I bought them and how they inspire me. (Catch up on parts one, two, and three.) Here’s the fourth and final part.
Jim Heimann and Steven Heller
Mid-Century Ads
I’m glad my bookcase is tall enough to fit this big coffee table anthology of advertising from the ’50s and ’60s. Between these two volumes, there are 700 pages of ads, all from the USA, and many of them from brands and products you won’t go shopping for today. The style of ads evolves between the ’50s and ’60s and both are very different from advertising today, especially their illustrations. It’s also fascinating to see so many typefaces not used often today.
D&AD14
D&AD (Design & Art Direction) is an advertising and design association famous for its Pencil awards, and we joined a few years ago. We certainly never made the most of our membership, but I’ve always enjoyed perusing work in their annuals. At £75, the most recent edition of this big book is’t cheap, but you can pick up older copies for £35 and don’t need to be a member to buy them.
Pete Barry
The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later
“Think Now, Design Later” is fantastic advice and this is a fabulous book for anyone who wants to think more clearly about creative strategy, creating campaigns, generating ideas, and how to sell them. It’s a practical book with projects to work through and will help anyone who’s interested in art direction as well as advertising and design,
David Ogilvy
Ogilvy on Advertising
David Ogilvy was a legend in the advertising world, having started with nothing and growing his agency—Ogilvy & Mather—to become one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. Ogilvy wrote ‘on Advertising’ in 1983 and as he is still recognised as one of advertising’s best copywriters, the emphasis he puts on the importance of copy isn’t surprising. Of course, the world has changed since Ogilvy’s time and I can think of quite a few people who will be upset by him saying “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” Still, outdated ideas or not, Ogilvy on Advertising is still a fascinating read, whether you’re interested in advertising or not.
Matt Watkinson
The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences
I need to confess, I haven’t started reading this book, as it was leant to me by a client who thought I might find it interesting.
Julie Starr
The Coaching Manual
While I was working in Australia, I attended a couple of leadership and coaching courses. Honestly, I have no interest in leading, but I do really enjoy helping people develop their design careers. I suppose one of the benefits of age is collecting experiences and after running a business and working as a designer for over 20 years, I have plenty of that. I needed help with how to structure coaching sessions though and this covers the skills I need to be a more effective coach. I also think this book will benefit anyone who works in a team, whether you coach people or not.
John Hegarty
Hegarty on Advertising: Turning Intelligence into Magic
While Ogilvy’s ideas on advertising might be less relevant today, Sir John Hegarty’s still are. Hegarty is the founder of advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) and some of his work includes campaigns for Levis—including the famous and ground-breaking launderette ads—, “Vorsprung Durch Technik” for Audi, and the “Cream Of Manchester” for Boddingtons. Interviewed in June this year, Hegarty wrote that, “Data is great at giving you information, giving you knowledge; but it doesn’t give you understanding and that is its great failing. What we need is greater creativity and what we’re doing today is reducing the power of creativity. Marketing, I believe, is suffering because of that; you’re not getting imaginative ideas that capture people’s imagination.” I could not agree with Hegarty more.
Mark Shaw
Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing
Ask me what anyone new to design should prioritise learning and my first answer will always be to improve your writing. It really doesn’t matter whether you write for advertising, marketing, or micro-copy in products, good writing skills are essential, and this book will help you to develop them.
Julie Starr
The Mentoring Manual
I bought this Mentoring Manual—written by the author of ‘The Coaching Manual’—to help me as I develop my designers mentoring program. I’ve been mentoring several designers over the past few months and while much of the process comes quite naturally to me, I wanted to know about how to structure a mentoring program and make sure my mentees get the most from it. From the feedback I’ve received had so far, this little book has already helped a lot.
William Zinsser
On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition
You’ve probably spotted it already, this section of my bookcase is where I keep my books on writing. This updated edition of the classic ‘On Writing Well’ well deserves its place. In fact, I doubt I would’ve been able to write four books without it.
Jeroen van Geel
Pitching Ideas: Make People Fall in Love with your Ideas
I have another ‘Hardboiled Web Design’ Shot planned for next year and this time I’ll be writing about about how to sell creative ideas. The content of this new book will be drawn from my experiences working in creative services for 25 years and I will be interviewing graphic, print, UX, and web designers to understand how they approach the process of presenting ideas to their bosses, clients, and other stakeholders. I bought ‘Pitching Ideas’ as part of my research but have only skimmed it up until now.
Joshua Weltman
Seducing Strangers
Josh Weltman is an advertising consultant and he created campaigns for clients including BMW, Doritos, Microsoft, and Whole Foods. However, that’s not what made his name familiar, to me at least. Weltman was co-producer of Mad Men, alongside Matthew Weiner, and he no doubt played an enormous role in directing Don Draper’s famous pitches. If you’re like me and want to learn how to sell like Don, this could be just the book.
William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
The Elements of Style
There are two books on writing that absolutely everyone should own. One is William Zinsser’ ‘On Writing Well,’ the other is this, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. I’ve lost track of how many copies of this book I’ve bought and then given away to clients and colleagues. If you’re short of present ideas for this coming Christmas, order a dozen copies and give them away, making sure you keep one copy for yourself.
That’s it, the end of this series on the books on my studio bookcase. I shipped many of these books to Australia and back and I bought many more while I was out there. In fact, books were the heaviest and costliest things to transport. I was surprised that—despite the company recommending a book for staff to read each quarter—the entire Ansarada office had just one small, token shelving unit in reception and there was nowhere for designers to keep any books.
So I bought a bookcase to display my collection but I was soon surprised that none of the product or marketing designers picked up a book, let alone added something new to the shelves. Several times, I bought multiple copies of books and magazines and gave them away as I thought they might inspire Ansarada designers to think more creatively about the things they were making. Sadly, no one seemed interested and it quickly became obvious that inspiration in book form was far less important to other people than it is for me.
I found that very sad as I still love buying, collecting, and reading physical books. Having a bookcase close to my desk encourages me to pick up books regularly, for inspiration as well as information. Somehow, digital editions and websites don’t inspire me in the same way. Books can be beautiful objects and easily begin transforming a bland office space into an inspiring one. I simply cannot imagine a creative space without books and I hope this series on my collection has inspired you to buy more.
Could you or your team benefit from knowing how to use art direction to improve your product or website? My in-house training and workshops can help.