The Best Books for Designers

Discover essential design books that dive deep into UI and product design, UX strategy, branding, graphic design, creativity, design thinking, psychology, marketing and more. This curated collection highlights influential titles that help designers develop their skills and expand their thinking.

Brand, Logo & Identity Design

Visual & Graphic Design

UI & Digital Product Design

UX, Behavior & Psychology

Creativity, Ideation & Design Thinking

Marketing & Personal Branding

Advertising & Copywriting

Ethical, Inclusive & Sustainable Design

Branding, Logo & Identity Design Books

Books that explore how to create memorable brands, strong visual identities, and logo systems that communicate clearly and endure over time.

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Logos that Last: How to Create Iconic Visual Branding

Allan Peters

Paid

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Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities

David Airey

Paid

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The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design

Marty Neumeier

Paid

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Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding

David Airey

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Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands

Marty Neumeier

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Designing Brand Identity: A Comprehensive Guide to the World of Brands and Branding

Alina Wheeler, Rob Meyerson

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Branding: In Five and a Half Steps

Michael Johnson

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Logo Modernism

Jens Müller, Julius Wiedemann, R. Roger Remington

Paid

Visual & Graphic Design Books

Titles covering typography, layout, composition, color, and visual storytelling to strengthen the foundations of graphic and communication design.

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Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students

Ellen Lupton

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Grid systems in graphic design: A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers

Josef Müller-Brockmann

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Interaction of Color

Josef Albers

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The Elements of Typographic Style

Robert Bringhurst

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Meggs' History of Graphic Design

Philip B. Meggs, Alston W. Purvis

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The Graphic Design Idea Book: Inspiration from 50 Masters

Steven Heller, Gail Anderson

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How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, ...

Michael Bierut

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The Visual History of Type: A visual survey of 320 typefaces

Paul McNeil

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100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

Steven Heller, Veronique Vienne

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Palette Perfect for Graphic Designers and Illustrators: Colour Combinations, Meanings and Cultural References

Sara Caldas

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Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself

Cath Caldwell

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User Interface & Digital Product Design Books

Books on designing digital products, interfaces, and interaction patterns that balance usability, product thinking, and business goals.

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Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Steve Krug

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Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design

Jenifer Tidwell, Charles Brewer, Aynne Valencia

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INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

Marty Cagan

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Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products & Services

Jon Yablonski

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The Best Interface Is No Interface: The simple path to brilliant technology

Golden Krishna

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The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)

John Maeda

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Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love

Jon Kolko

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Designing Products People Love: How Great Designers Create Successful Products

Scott Hurff

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Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want

A. Osterwalder, Y. Pigneur, G. Bernarda, A. Smith

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The Digital Product Handbook

3steban - Product Crafters

Free

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The Path to Senior Product Designer: An Actionable Growth Plan for a UX Design Career

Artiom Dashinsky

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Solving Product Design Exercises: Questions & Answers

Artiom Dashinsky

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Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Nir Eyal

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Wireframing for Everyone

Michael Angeles, Leon Barnard, and Billy Carlson

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Generating Product Ideas: Actionable Techniques for Finding New Business Ideas

Artiom Dashinsky

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Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown

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User Experience Design, Behavior & Psychology

Books that deepen understanding of user behavior, research methods, cognition, and UX strategy to create more meaningful, human-centered experiences.

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The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman

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User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play

Cliff Kuang, Robert Fabricant

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How to design intuitive, user centered interfaces by focusing on effective communication

Everett McKay

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UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want

Jaime Levy

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

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100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

Susan Weinschenk

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Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience

Jeff Gothelf, Josh Seiden

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Click! How to encourage clicks without shady tricks.

Paul Boag

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Creativity, Ideation & Design Thinking Books

Reads that support creative confidence, idea generation, and design thinking for solving complex problems and exploring new directions in design.

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The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Rick Rubin

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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

Tim Brown

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Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All

Tom Kelley, David Kelley

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The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO

Tom Kelley

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Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

Jake Knapp

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Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Austin Kleon

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The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

Twyla Tharp

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Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways

Sarah Stein Greenberg, Stanford d.school

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Marketing & Personal Branding

Books connecting design with marketing, positioning, and personal branding, helping designers communicate value and build visible, sustainable careers.

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The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd

Allan Dib

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The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!

Al Ries, Jack Trout

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Lean Marketing: More leads. More profit. Less marketing.

Allan Dib

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Wealthy and Well-Known: Build Your Personal Brand and Turn Your Reputation into Revenue

Rory Vaden, AJ Vaden

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Market Eminence: 22 Strategies to Build a Bold Personal Brand, Become a Business Celebrity, and Drive Unstoppable Growth

David Newman

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Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

Donald Miller

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Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet

Taylor Lorenz

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Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media

Brittany Hennessy

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Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Geoffrey A. Moore

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Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Simon Sinek

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This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See

Seth Godin

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Loveworks: How the world's top marketers make emotional connections to win in the marketplace

Brian Sheehan

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Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Jonah Berger

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Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

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Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising

Alex Schultz

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Product Design Portfolio Final Final: Make a product design portfolio that lands dream jobs

Fedor Shkliarau

Paid

Advertising & Copywriting Books

Titles focused on advertising craft, copywriting, and communication design, showing how words and visuals work together to persuade and inform.

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Copywriting: Successful Writing for Design, Advertising and Marketing

Mark Shaw, Gyles Lingwood

Paid

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Ogilvy on Advertising

David Ogilvy

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Advertising by Design: Generating and Designing Creative Ideas

Robin Landa

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Integrated Marketing Communication

Robyn Blakeman

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Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy, and Design

Tom Altstiel, Jean M. Grow, Dan Augustine, Joanna L. Jenkins

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Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Advertising

Luke Sullivan

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The Copywriter's Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells

Robert W. Bly

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Reality in Advertising

Rosser Reeves

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Ethical, Inclusive & Sustainable Design Books

Books that address ethics, inclusion, accessibility, and sustainability in design, encouraging more responsible, equitable, and long-term design decisions.

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Design for Real Life

Eric A Meyer, Sara Wachter-Boettcher

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Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It

Mike Monteiro

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Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech

Sara Wachter-Boettcher

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Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)

Kat Holmes

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Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind

Reginé M. Gilbert

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Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need

Sasha Costanza-Chock

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The Future of the Responsible Company: What We've Learned from Patagonia's First 50 Years

Vincent Stanley, Yvon Chouinard

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Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

William McDonough, Michael Braungart

Paid

How These Books Are Curated

This list is curated to help designers at all levels discover high-quality books that provide real value. Each category highlights widely read and influential titles across the key areas of modern design: product and UI design, UX strategy, behavior and psychology, branding and identity, graphic design, creativity and ideation, communication and copywriting, ethical and inclusive design, and marketing.

All books on this page are carefully curated. However, as an Amazon Associate Toools.design earns from qualifying purchases. Purchases made through these links help support the work behind Toools.design at no additional cost to you. Thank you so much for your support.