Gallery: 15 Smart Design Books to Inspire You in 2015
Bas Princen0120.-Bas-Princen-Cooling-plant-Dubai-2009
[*Shooting Space: Architecture in Contemporary Photography*](http://www.amazon.com/Shooting-Space-Elias-Redstone/dp/071486742X) explores the long, often symbiotic, relationship between architects and photographers. Bas Princen's subject of choice were monolithic structures like this Dubai cooling plant. [Read more here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/10/17-influential-architecture-photos-time/).
Dionisio González, from <em>Imagine Architecture</em>, Gestalten 201402imaginearchitecture-press-p212-213
Instead of featuring famous skyscrapers and monuments, [*Imagine Architecture: Artistic Visions of the Urban Realm*](http://usshop.gestalten.com/imagine-architecture.html) is filled with upside down apartment flats, levitating houses, and skyscrapers made of clouds. It's a quixotic branch of architecture: the kind that's only imagined. [Read more here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/12/mind-bending-buildings-never-meant-built).
J.K. Putnam03juice-box-1255
Before Instagram existed, photo-takers could capture tinted filters and light leaks with cheap toy cameras, often manufactured to market movies or companies. [*Camera Crazy*](http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Crazy-Buzz-Poole/dp/3791349554) features dozens of such cameras. [Check out more cameras here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/10/bizarre-toy-cameras-heralded-age-instagram/).
Herlinde Koelbl04hammelburg- 001
German photographer Herlinde Koelbl traveled to 30 countries and visited military camps to photograph the shooting targets used around the world. The sometimes eerie, sometime comical results are compiled in [*Targets*](http://www.amazon.com/Herlinde-Koelbl-Targets/dp/3791349481). [See more here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/08/shooting-targets/).
Ivan Jones0568c
[*Collector's Editions*](http://www.amazon.com/Collectors-Edition-Innovative-Packaging-Graphics/dp/0500517576) documents the rise in elaborate collector's edition packaging that's happened as young designers combine digital and analog craft techniques. For The National's latest album, *Trouble Will Find Me* (seen here), the band adapted an image from a performance piece by Korean artist Bohyun Yoon. [See more editions here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/11/design-stories-behind-15-awesome-collectors-edition-albums/).
Dominic Wilcox06geneticnone
[*Variations On Normal*](http://shop.variationsonnormal.com/product/variations-on-normal-book) is like a pint-sized sketchbook of contraptions, all sprung from designer Dominic Wilcox’s puckish, fertile imagination---square peas, anyone? [More here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/09/8-goofy-design-ideas-that-make-you-wonder-why-not/).
The National Archives, London, England 2014. © 2014 Crown Copyright07138
These days, it seems like every other person is trying to launch a new app. That kind of entrepreneurial fever isn't so new: [*Inventions That Didn’t Change the World*](http://www.amazon.com/Inventions-That-Didnt-Change-World/dp/0500517622) is a collection of Victorian era design ideas that didn't quite see the light of day. [More would-be inventions here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/12/tk-steampunk-era-drawings-inventions-didnt-change-world/).
Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing08Screen Shot 2014-12-22 at 12.13.30 PM
[*TM: The Untold Stories Behind 29 Classic Logos*](http://www.amazon.com/TM-Untold-Stories-Behind-Classic/dp/1780671652) is brimming with fun historical graphic [design facts](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/09/weird-facts-about-5-of-the-worlds-most-famous-logos/). Such as: the CBS eye logo was inspired by a mid-19th century Shaker religious drawing. [Read more here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/09/weird-facts-about-5-of-the-worlds-most-famous-logos/).
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum09106N-BU-Graphic-Panel-05
Midcentury industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss pioneered the idea of designing for users. For an exhibit at the newly opened Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, designer Ellen Lupton curated Dreyfuss's charts and thoughts on ergonomics in [*Beautiful Users*](http://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781616892913).
Taschen10tiki-09
[*Tiki Pop: America Conjures Up Its Own Polynesian Paradise*](http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/02897/facts.tiki_pop_america_imagines_its_own_polynesian_paradise.htm) looks at the peculiar Tiki design aesthetic that made rattan furniture and tropical drinks all the rage of the 1960s. [More Tiki trivia here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/07/the-bizarre-rise-and-fall-of-the-tiki-bar-in-american-culture/).
Dan Eckstein11Eckstein-003
Sometimes the most staggeringly beautiful designs have humble origins. [*Horn Please*](http://www.hornpleaseindia.com/) chronicles the bus drivers on the Grand Trunk Road in India. The drivers essentially live in their buses, so each one gets lovingly decorated, like a home. [More images here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/11/psychedelic-customized-big-rigs-india/).
Courtesy NLE and Zoohaus/Inteligencias Colectivas and MoMA12lagos293
MoMA unveiled an ambitious exhibit this year. In [*Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Growing Megacities*](http://www.momastore.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10451&productId=195300&promoCode=8H104&categoryId=11486&parent_category_rn=26683&cm_mmc=MoMA-_-Other-_-Exhibitions-_-NA) the museum invited six teams of architects, urban planners, and researchers to propose urban planning solutions for future mega-cities. Curator Pedro Gadanho's book provides a closer look at the proposals. [See more urban planning ideas here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/11/urban-planning-ideas-2030-billions-will-live-megacities/).
Cory Arcangel13novel1
[*Working On My Novel*](http://www.amazon.com/Working-On-Novel-Cory-Arcangel/dp/1846147425) isn't technically a book about design, but the spare and witty book could only have come from a designer: New York artist Cory Arcangel had to write a bit of code to properly mine Twitter for the best tweets containing "working on my novel." It’s a pithy take on the nature of creativity. [More tweets here](http://stag4.wired.com/2014/09/brilliantly-witty-book-mined-twitter/).
Prestel14Vasarely - interior 2
Another children and parent pleaser: The op art works of 1970s psychedelic artist Victor Vasarely become three-dimensional in the colorful [*Pop-Up Op-Art: Vasarely*](http://www.amazon.com/Pop-Up-Op-Art-Vasarely-Philippe-UG/dp/3791372025).
Taschen15524247-mrp-in-xl
Design was still a budding industry when some of the most iconic album art---think the cover of The Beatles's *Revolver*---hit stands. [*Rock Covers*](http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/popculture/all/03405/facts.rock_covers.htm) tells the stories behind 250 of them.
