Each year the faculty selects a rigorous reading list for first and second year MFA Design students. View the rest of this post for this year’s extensive list according to instructor and course.

Ken Carbone: Thesis Consultation
– The World Without Us by Alan Weisman;
– Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart;
– An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably – Didn’t by Judy Jones and William Wilson.

Veronique Vienne: Introduction to Design Criticism
– Ways of seeing by John Berger;
– Techniques of the Observer by Jonathan Grary;
– Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturini
– The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design & Designers by Alan and Isabella Livingstrong;
– The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
– Something to be desired by Veronique Vienne;
– In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki;
– The Hand by Frank Wilson.

Allan Chochinov: Design in 3-Dimensions
– In the bubble by John Thackara
– Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling
– By Design by Ralph Caplan
– Design is the Problem by Nathan Shedroff
– Half The Sky: Turning oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl D. Kristof WuDunn
– Design Revolution by Emily Pilloton

Warren Lehrer: Designing and Writing the Experimental Book
– Non-Adhesive Bindings, by Keith Smith Books, Rochester NY
– How to make Books, by Esther K. Smith, Potter Craft
– Bookbinding for Book Artists, by Keith Smith Books, Rochester NY
– Creative Bookbinding, by Pauline Johnson, Washington Books
– Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, Shambala
– Burning Down the House, by Charles Baxter, Graywolf Press
– Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, Pantheon
– The Elements of Grammar, by Margaret Shertzer, MacMillan
– Poetry as Insurgent Art, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Directions
– Structure of the Visual Book, by Keith Smith Books, Rochester NY
– Text in Book Format, Keith Smith Books, Rochester NY
– A Century of Artists’ Books, Johanna Drucker, Granary Books
– The Visible Word, Johanna Drucker, Chicago University Press
– Letter and Image, Massin, Van Nostrand
– The Looking Closer books, Steven Heller, Allworth
– JAB (Journal of Artists’ Books) Brad Freeman, Chicago
– A Book of the Book: Some Works & Projections about the Book & Writing Steven Clay, Jerome Rothenberg, Granary Books
– The Book, Spiritual Instrument, Jerome Rothenberg, David M. Guss, Granary