The best Graphic Design coffee table books
Finding Graphic Design coffee table books to decorate your home can be a difficult task. It’s not easy to find a design book that fits aesthetically in your living room, reflects your personality and is interesting to your guests at the same time.
The best Graphic Design coffee table books stand out for being large format books, about interesting popular topics, as well as a very beautiful and neat design. That’s why they often crown the coffee tables of design and decorating magazine pictures.
If you’re a designer like me, you’ll find many areas of design interesting, so below I’m going to propose a curated selection of Graphic Design coffee table books, each focused on a different area of design. This way, you’re sure to find a book that fits your interests and taste.
The 7 best Graphic Design coffee table books
The History of Graphic Design, Vol. 2
- Author: Jens Müller
- Hardcover: 480 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best Graphic Design coffee table book
If you love Graphic Design and you want a coffee table book that shows your love for it, this one is a must-have in your collection of the best graphic design books. It’s entertaining and useful, so any guest will enjoy it, and so will you.
Its author is Jens Müller, a German graphic designer who boasts of having won numerous national and international awards within this discipline. He is a creative director at Vista design studio in Düsseldorf, editor of the A5 collection on the history of Graphic Design and author of Logo Modernism . Jens is also a professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund.
In this volume, Müller addresses the most comprehensive exploration of Graphic Design to date, indicating how this field shaped contemporary society from the 1960s to the present day. The book includes around 3,500 design pieces and 78 emblematic projects to illustrate the history of Graphic Design, making it both informative and dynamic.
Homebody
- Author: Joanna Gaines
- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best Interior Design coffee table book
When we think of books for your coffee table, Interior Design books are usually the first to come to mind. Well, that’s what this book is all about. Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave.
Its author is Joanna Gaines, co-founder of Magnolia, a home and lifestyle brand. She co-wrote the New York Times bestseller The Magnolia Story with her husband and has been redesigning homes for more than two decades. She is also editor-in-chief of Magnolia Journal, a lifestyle magazine offering inspiration for life and home.
In Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave, Joanna Gaines guides you through creating a home that reflects the personalities and stories of the people who live in it. Using examples from her own cottage, as well as other homes, this comprehensive guide will help you assess your priorities and instincts, as well as your likes and dislikes, with practical steps for navigating and embracing your authentic design style.
Room by room, Homebody offers an in-depth look at how these styles are implemented and how to combine the aspects that appeal to you in each to create unique spaces that feel distinctly yours. A pull-out design template in the back of the book offers a step-by-step guide for planning and outlining your own design plans. In short: the knowledge shared in Homebody will give you the confidence to create spaces you’ll never want to leave.
Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie
- Author: Brandon Alinger, Wade Lageose and David Mandel
- Hardcover: 768 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best Concept Art coffee table book
Movie lover? Star Wars lover? Concept Art lover? You only need to answer yes to one of these questions to get your hands on the Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie.
Ralph McQuarrie, is probably the most iconic concept artist in Star Wars history. He worked side by side with George Lucas to help establish the visual aesthetic of the saga, its inimitable look and feel.
In addition to designing such iconic characters as Darth Vader, C-3PO and R2-D2, McQuarrie created hundreds of concept illustrations for Star Wars, as well as costume designs, storyboards, matte paintings, posters, book covers and album covers.
In Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie, you’ll find the definitive collection of this artist’s Star Wars artwork, all scanned and photographed in high quality. In addition, it includes hundreds of never-before-seen illustrations, rare unpublished interviews, as well as recollections from McQuarrie’s colleagues and friends, which complement and contextualize his art.
Chanel: Collections and Creations
- Author: Danièle Bott
- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
The best Fashion Design coffee table book
If the world of fashion is your thing, Chanel: Collections and Creations is an exceptional book for any coffee table. Elegant inside and out, it’s a no-brainer if you’re into fashion design.
As for the author, Danièle Bott is a journalist specializing in fashion and beauty. She has worked for many top magazins, such as Vogue, and in this book she brings out all her talent and knowledge about the world of fashion.
Inspired by the house’s iconic fragrance, the legendary Chanel No. 5, the book is divided into 5 central themes. Within each, it follows the threads from the past to the present to show how the brand’s key items have been rediscovered and reinvented by Chanel’s fashion designers, following in the footsteps of their predecessors.
This visual journey is set against a backdrop of previously unpublished archival photographs and original drawings by Karl Lagerfeld, as well as glorious images by some of the greatest names in fashion photography. In addition, in this book, the brand opens its private archives, revealing a galaxy of designs created by Coco Chanel since 1920.
Marvelocity: The Marvel Comics Art of Alex Ross
- Author: Alex Ross, Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear
- Hardcover: 312 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best coffee table book for Illustration lovers
If you like the world of comics in general and Marvel in particular, you will love the book Marvelocity: The Marvel Comics Arts of Alex Ross, an essential title for all lovers of this format.
Its authors are the legendary Alex Ross, along with Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear. Alex Ross is an icon of comic book illustration and his works for DC and Marvel are considered true works of art. Chip Kidd is the author, art director and designer of Batman Collected, Batman: Animated, Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan and the graphic novel Batman: Death by Design. Finally, Geoff Spears has photographed for numerous publications including Esquire, GQ, Smithsonian, Wired, Newsweek and The New York Times.
As for the book, Marvelocity is everything a fan of Ross and Marvel Comics could want in a coffee table book. The book collects mythical comic book covers, splash pages, concept art and never-before-seen pencil sketches. There are original photo references, sketches showing his early evolution as a designer, and even adorable childhood doodles.
If that wasn’t enough, the book even shows Ross’s creative process for some of his work. One finishes Marvelocity realizing that Alex Ross is truly sui generis and unlikely to be matched, given the production times of today’s comics.
The Art of Pixar
- Author: Amid Amidi
- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best Animation coffee table book
There is no doubt that Pixar revolutionized animated cinema. So much so that even Disney trembled before its talent and ended up acquiring it. If you’re a fan of 3D animated films and this studio, you’ll enjoy everything that can be seen in The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts and Select Art from 25 Years of Animation.
It is by Amid Amidi, a writer, historian and consultant specializing in animation, author of other books such as The Art of Robots and A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Sève, as well as a biography of the legendary Ward Kimball. Amidi boasts of being the youngest author to receive the Theatre Library Association’s award for Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950’s Animation.
In this revised and expanded edition to mark the 25th anniversary of Pixar’s feature films, The Art of Pixar captures the impressive behind-the-scenes visual process of colour scripts. These scripts are the sequential paintings that visually represent key moments in each film’s story and set the lighting, colour, and tone during the filming process.
This expanded edition includes colour scripts from Pixar’s feature films and shorts through Onward and Soul. A must-have for aspiring animators, Pixar enthusiasts and Art collectors.
The Wes Anderson Collection
- Author: Matt Zoller Seitz and Wes Anderson
- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Language: English
Last price update on 2023-05-11. We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Best Art Direction coffee table book
In the world of cinema, there are numerous directors with their own unique style, but one of the most iconic in terms of art direction is undoubtedly the enigmatic Wes Anderson.
The author, Matt Zoller Seitz, is a reputable film and television critic, filmmaker and writer. He has published several best-selling books on film and television series, three of them on Wes Anderson alone.
The Wes Anderson Collection brings together all the iconic director’s films in a single volume, each one introduced with beautiful illustrations by Max Dalton, and with carefully selected conversations, photographs and artwork of each film, from Bottle Rocket to Moonrise Kingdom.
In this book you will find an intelligent and thoughtful study of the films and working process of one of the great visionaries of contemporary cinema, as it reviews the thematic, visual and narrative content that shapes Wes Anderson’s films and gives them their peculiar idiosyncratic character.
