I was driving home two weeks ago and got stuck in one of our summer afternoon thunderstorms complete with dangerous lightning and hail which led to equally dangerous driving conditions. I popped into the bookstore and started wandering around the design, branding and architecture sections. This book is branding (differentiation) genius. It almost leaps off the shelf into your hands before you even have time to consider the others. It taps several of your senses – not just sight (which most books try to do), but also touch and sound. How great is the name? Inspirability. A made up, very memorable word. The cover is a grassy mossy green velvet with an embossed pattern. It had me at hello. Here’s the link.
Even more wonderful is what’s inside. The author “Pash” interviewed 40 top designers about what inspires them. The first question is standard for each interviewee, but then there are these wonderful, thought-stirring tangents. I have always been curious to know how other people’s minds tick, how they design, create and solve problems. Another fun feature of this book is that at the end of each formal interview is a Q&A sheet filled in by the designers. The forms are all filled out by hand (unusual to find these days, and handwriting in itself can inspire design) and have sketches, doodles and answers to questions the designers thought should have been asked.
If you don’t have a book to curl up with on this holiday, consider grabbing Inspirability and celebrating.
