Guest blogger: Phil Patton (New York Times, New York)
Profile   Notable Books of 2011
Guest blogger Phil Patton highlights some books he is currently reading, and rereading, on a wide range of design subjects. —SK

Graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile  Book List
Graphic designer Tom Geismar: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List
Graphic designer Sagi Haviv: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List

In the first in a series of Author Q&As, Designers & Books asks graphic designers Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Sagi Haviv to talk about their new book, Identify (Print Publishing, October 2011), named a Notable Book of 2011 by Designers & Books.

Architect Cesar Pelli: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects (New Haven, Connecticut)
Profile   Book List
Recognized for a lifetime of distinguished achievement in architecture—he is the recipient of more than 200 awards and prizes for his contributions to the field—Cesar Pelli has designed some of the contemporary world’s most famous buildings.

Architect, interior designer, and product designer Shashi Caan: Shashi Caan Collective (New York and Edinburgh)
Profile    Book List
Born in India, educated in Europe, and with wide experience as a design practitioner and teacher in the U.S., Shashi Caan is the consummate global citizen. “I am an embodiment of my interpretation of the confluence of sometimes conflicting cultural views and constructs,” is how she describes herself in the introduction to the book list that she sent along to Designers & Books.

Guest blogger: Julie Lasky (Design Observer/Change Observer, New York)
Profile   Notable Books of 2011
Guest blogger Julie Lasky—design and visual culture journalist, critic, and author—talks about attempting to write a book for children on design. — SK

Interior and product designer Alexa Hampton: Mark Hampton LLC (New York)
Profile   Book List
As head of the interiors firm founded by her legendary father, Mark Hampton, Alexa Hampton carries the lessons of her Brown University education (class of 1993) into her life as a highly sought-after interior designer and a lifelong student and reader.

Interior Designer Ernest de le Torre: de la Torre Design Studio (New York)
Profile  Book List
It’s been said that one of the most valuable traits of a gifted interior designer is perfection of the power of absorption. If there is truth to this, then Ernest de le Torre is certainly exemplary. He grew up in the Midwest, but from his Cuban parents retained a Latin sensibility. His design influences from his Chicago area upbringing include both the formal traditionalism of David Adler and the spare, modern geometry of Mies van der Rohe.

Guest blogger: Visual culture critic Rick Poynor (Design Observer, London)
Profile   Notable Books of 2011
Guest blogger Rick Poynor—also a Designers & Books commentator—discusses Christian Patterson’s Redheaded Peckerwood (MACK, 2011). — SK

Architect Stanley Tigerman: Tigerman McCurry Architects (Chicago)
Profile  Book List
Stanley Tigerman—recently the subject of a retrospective at the Yale School of Architecture Gallery honoring his long and varied career as architect, iconoclastic theorist, and educator—freely admits that he became an architect because of a book. It’s a book whose individualistic main character has elicited a wide range of reactions since its first publication in 1943 (and in the past year was included on four other Designers & Books lists): Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead.

Our list of Notable Design Books of 2011 didn't quite reach 100 titles, but we did make it to 90. Our newest participants—those helping us to celebrate the year in design book publishing—include Stanley Abercrombie, John Hill, Debbie Millman, Erik Spiekermann, and Tiana Vasiljev. They join Justin Davidson, Wendy Goodman, Julie Lasky, Paul Makovsky, Maria Popova, Rick Poynor, and Alissa Walker.