This week I feel so honored to have Lisa Congdon share five of her favorite books. Lisa is a self taught mixed media artist and illustrator living and working in San Francisco. And if you haven’t seen or heard of Lisa’s beautiful paintings and collages from her features in magazines, posts about her on design blogs or interviews like this one, it’s about time. (I recently became a proud owner of one of Lisa’s paintings which I love.) She says she is obsessed with collecting books and zines that represent the artistic genius of regular (and some not-so-regular) people, past and present. Someday Lisa would like to make a book. I can’t wait for that day. You can see more of Lisa’s own work on her site here and her blog here. Now for some of her favorites…

Thankfully, the imagery in most Japanese design books is so stunning that it makes up for the fact that I can’t read a word of the text. And that’s just the case with Book Design of Graphic Designers in Japan. The book features book and book illustration design of famous designers of Japan, mostly from the mid century. It is fantastic inspiration, bright and bold with primary colors and a mixture of Asian influence and a mid-century design aesthetic. This book is hard to get a hold of. I got this book at Rare Device in Brooklyn but they are sold out, as is Your Work for Them. Might they restock? Who knows?

© Julia Rothman 2007