From the bookcase to the coffee table to the bedside, here is a small selection of creative and theoretical literature to keep the mind sharp, reflexive and accurately tuned in.
The Monocle Guide To Good Business
Because I’m woking on it, and to be honest, who better to go to than the guys at Monocle? These are the hard core business, creative and marketing revolutionists who go into the nooks and the crannies and dig out the best of the best from all the corners of the globe. Check out Monocle Magazine, and buy this book as part of a collection here or singularly here.
The Monocle Guide to Good Business is a “book for would-be business leaders, start-ups and established companies that feel it’s time for some new ideas. It’s a book to be used – write in the margins and turn over the corners of the pages.”
The 300-page book features original photography and illustrations printed on a selection of the highest-quality papers; it’s a handbook for those who want to make a company that will last. Also available in a limited deluxe edition.
Brutal Simplicity of Thought
I go back and forth with this one thinking that that’s the way it was designed to be used, like a creative handbook; brief copy-written content and brutally simple editorial design. This book features great ideas that became successful because of the simplicity of thought behind them, teaching us to refine our creative concepts by getting straight to the point. Neatly packaged with a quick witted sense of humour. Very black and white (!)
Purchase here or read the PDF version here!
“This book celebrates moments when Brutal Simplicity of Thought changed the world, and proved that nothing is impossible.”
Ways of Curating – Hans Ulrich Obrist
“A wise man learns from another mans mistakes”, I think the saying goes? In this case I guess a wiser individual learns from another mans success. This is more of a personal account of experiences as a creative from the man who “made curating an art.”
Drawing on his own experiences and inspirations – from staging his first exhibition in his tiny Zurich kitchen in 1986 to encounters with artists, exhibition makers and thinkers – Hans Ulrich Obrist looks to inspire all those engaged in the creation of culture. Ways of Curating argues that curation is far from a static practice. Driven by curiosity, at its best it allows us to create the future.
Click the link for more information…
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!): How To Unleash Your Creative Potential by America’s Master Communicator – George Lois
Again, because being a freelance creative is a constant battle, and although the ‘economy is bad‘ and the amount of quality fair paying jobs going for creatives are scarce at the moment, that doesn’t discredit your talent. Creatives must continue to cultivate new ideas and use those idea to create jobs for themselves and others.
DAMN GOOD ADVICE (for people with talent!) is an inspirational guide to creativity and success. Presenting iconic lessons from America’s ‘Master Communicator’, George Lois, this book is a bible of breakthrough thinking. A no-holds-barred, in your face compendium of lessons for a life lived to the fullest written for anyone looking to make a creative difference.
Need a copy? Buy HERE now!
The Second Sex
Yo! This is a Bible… and before you jump down my throat about sacrilegiousness or blasphemy, hold your horses, bible is short for bibliography… This is one of many great pieces of theoretical literature to make reference to regarding women, womanhood in society, feminism and all the antis that form the glass roofs we continue to smash through.
I have a few authors I’m studying at the moment… I collected and became overwhelmed… Pressure.
Purchase here.
THE SECOND SEX is a hymn to human freedom and a classic of the existentialist movement. It also has claims to be the most important s ingle book in the history of feminism. In the forty years since its publication De Beauvoir’s then revolutionary thesis – that the subordination of women is not a fact of nature but the product of social conditioning has become part of our everyday thinking.
Photography by Obui Amaechi
