Let’s face it, most of us don’t show up for work feeling one hundred percent energized every single day. Whether it’s a mid-morning coffee break, a yoga class, or a brainstorming session – we all need outlets to get the juices flowing. So, over the course of the year, we tasked clients with the big question: how do you inspire and excite your teams?
Not surprisingly, many of them said they have go-to reads that they tap into for innovative ideas and strategies. We couldn’t help but share their recommendations for the keys to making the magic happen day in and day out.
The Accidental Creative
Todd Henry
The Accidental Creative is well suited to creatives working in the in the commercial environment. There’s a learning curve to staying active in your own creative practice while giving it your all professionally. This book, loosely adapted from podcast content, provides valuable tools to thrive in today’s competitive creative marketplace where innovation is a requirement. The Accidental Creative supports the creative process with accessible insights.
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
Scott Belsky
So you’ve got great ideas but having a hard time making them a reality? Join the club. Making Ideas Happen teaches the development of the essential skill of execution, which the author and founder of Behance argues is a learned is a skill that must be developed by building your organizational habits and working with the team around you.
Creative Confidence
Tom and David Kelley
IDEO founder and partner, David and Tom Kelley, discuss essential components of leveraging our creative potential across all aspects of our lives. Creative Confidence lays out core principles of innovation and problem solving to help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.
Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
Tim Brown
Change By Design explores design thinking, an often used collaborative process by creative agencies, blending creative innovation with business strategy. Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO offers real situations involving this user-centered thinking to help clients and agencies be more innovative and creative.
SPRINT: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Jake Knapp
A valuable tool for a collaborative team looking for new strategies, Sprint offers practical applications for any size organization from startup to enterprise. Whether a specific project has got you stumped or you’re looking for ideas on lead generation, Sprint can offer pathways to uncover ideas that will lead to a better outcome.
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
Jonah Berger
Contagious delves into the reasons why certain things catch on. Is it magic? Well-crafted content? Influencer marketing? Berger offers a step by step approach to develop and deliver messaging that begs to be shared.
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content
Ann Handley
In the creative environment – everyone from designers to strategists need to be able to come up with the content on a dime. From catchy headlines to a well-crafted email, Everybody Writes offers essential information for better communication.
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Simon Sinek
Based on the third most popular TED Talk to date, Simon Sinek starts offers answers to the burning questions: ‘Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?’ As far as we’re concerned, required reading.
Independent Voices in Design: A Look at Today’s Most Influential Design Publishers
In a world where design is constantly evolving, a handful of independent publishers have carved out spaces to document, preserve, and challenge the visual language of our time. These design publishing houses don’t just produce beautiful books—they curate cultural conversations, archive typographic histories, and elevate new voices in design. Whether you’re a practicing designer, a student, or a collector, these publishers offer something invaluable: context.
1. Slanted Publishers (Germany)
Best Known For: Slanted Magazine
Slanted is a powerhouse in the global design community. Their quarterly magazine blends interviews, essays, and visual features around a central theme, often tied to a specific city or cultural movement. With editions on Tokyo, Paris, or Artificial Intelligence in Design, Slanted explores how regional influence and emerging tech shape creativity. Their editorial lens is broad but curated, touching on type design, photography, and political commentary.
Must-Read: Slanted Magazine #38 – Experimental Type
2. Unit Editions (UK)
Best Known For: Designing Programmes, Type Only
Founded by Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy, Unit Editions publishes rigorously researched and impeccably designed monographs, often centered on underrepresented or legacy figures in the design world. Their works feel like a masterclass in visual communication, with deep dives into modernist design, visual systems, and branding archives. Unit’s strength is its balance of academic insight and visual inspiration.
Must-Read: Manuals 1: Design & Identity Guidelines
3. Gestalten (Germany)
Best Known For: Visual Feast, The New Luxury, Delicious Places
Gestalten bridges mainstream appeal with high design sensibility. Their books explore design adjacent disciplines—like travel, architecture, branding, and food—with editorial polish. Their broad reach makes them a gateway for creatives across disciplines. Their layout and image curation are consistently lush, making them a favorite in studios and on coffee tables alike.
Must-Read: The Monocle Guide to Better Living (co-published)
4. Counter-Print (UK)
Best Known For: Human Logo, From Scandinavia, Art Marks
Counter-Print began as an online marketplace for vintage design books but has since evolved into a robust publisher of contemporary design titles. Focused primarily on identity, branding, and illustration, they curate works that are both current and globally aware. Their titles often feature a global roundup of work, making them essential for trendspotting in branding and graphic identity.
Must-Read: From Japan – A collection of branding and design from Japan
5. Standards Manual (USA)
Best Known For: NYC Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual
Born from a Kickstarter campaign, Standards Manual made waves by reissuing iconic identity manuals, including the NASA and EPA design systems. Their mission is archival and preservationist, but their aesthetic and packaging are thoroughly modern. Each title feels like a rare artifact—relevant for design historians, UX teams, and anyone interested in the logic of systems thinking.
Must-Read: NASA Graphics Standards Manual
6. Onomatopee (Netherlands)
Best Known For: The Politics of Design, Design Dedication
Onomatopee merges publishing with programming—books with exhibitions. They often explore the political and social dimensions of design, straddling the line between theory and practice. Their works are critical, experimental, and cross-disciplinary. If you’re looking for books that challenge design orthodoxy, this is the place.
Must-Read: Design Dedication – Adaptive Mentalities in Design Education
Independent design publishers are more than book producers—they are curators of cultural memory and catalysts for creative thought. Each of these houses has its own editorial fingerprint and visual tone, but all share a commitment to celebrating, documenting, and sometimes disrupting the way we see and shape the world through design.