Compiled From 13 “Best Graphic Design Books” Articles
I've collated the results from 13 "best graphic design books" articles to create this semi-scientific ultimate best graphic design books list. Each design book was given a score between 20 and 1 each time they featured on one of the 13 articles. Jump to the bottom of the page to see exactly how the scores were calculated.
1. How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul
by Adrian Shaughnessy
96 points
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3. Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
by Alina Wheeler
74 points
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=4. The Elements of Typographic Style
by Robert Bringhurst
58 points
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=4. Making and Breaking the Grid: A Layout Design Workshop
by Timothy Samara
58 points
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7. 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design
by Steven Heller, Veronique Vienne
51 points
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8. Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
by Simon Garfield
50 points
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10. Grid Systems in Graphic Design
by Josef Mülller-Brockmann
42 points
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11. Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines
by Graphic Artist's Guild
40 points
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=12. Graphic Design : The New Basics
by Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips
38 points
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=12. Graphic Design, Referenced
by Armin Vit, Bryony Gomez-Palacio
38 points
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=12. The Art of Looking Sideways
by Alan Fletcher
38 points
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=16. A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design
by Beryl McAlhone, David Stuart
37 points
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=16. Know Your Onions: Graphic Design
by Drew de Soto
37 points
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=18. Sagmeister: Made You Look
by Stefan Sagmeister, Peter Hall
33 points
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21. The Print Handbook
by Andy Brown
A cheeky (and unofficial) entry
View Store
How The Scores Were Calculated
Each design book was given a score between 20 and 1 for each of the 13 articles. If the book was top in the article it received 20 points. If it was bottom in a top 20 list then it got 1 point.
Some articles were not strictly top 10 or top 20 articles, but the books were still entered in the order they appeared on the page.
Want to see the full spreadsheet of 140 books? Or course you do. Here it is.
Amazon Review Bonus Points
Additionally each graphic design book received bonus points depending on how many stars it received on Amazon.
- 5 stars: 6 bonus points
- 4.5 stars: 3 bonus points
- 4 stars and below: 0 bonus points
Books need to have at least five reviews to receive bonus points. If they have less than five reviews then they receive 0 bonus points.
Pages used
The following pages were used to create the scores: