Earlier this summer I borrowed the book Making Ideas Happen from my friend Elena. This week Elena managed to raise over $33,000 on Kickstarter for her documentary film, The Illusionists looking at body image in the media. She read this book before she put together the campaign, so I can only hope as good of things are around the corner for me – some really good ideas inside. (p.s. There’s still a week left to donate to The Illusionists!)

Then my friend Rachel lent me Just My Type. It not a relationship book, but an insightful and humorously geeky look at typography. Leave it to a Brit to share this fun read with me which I loved so much I had to get my own copy. Just as a heads up, it’s not out in the US until September (but the UK cover – pictured above is way cooler if you ask me). So continuing on my type kick, I figured it was time to pick up a copy of the classic Elements of Typographic Style. I’m totally ready to savor the intricacies of type in my down time.

The other inspiration for my design-related summer reading is that I’ll be teaching a 3-day intensive design module to non-designers this fall. It should be an exciting challenge for us all. I’m actually really loving creating the curriculum, but I wanted to pick up a few books for added inspiration. Ellen Lupton is the Queen of design if you ask me, so I decided it was time to round out my library of Design It Yourself and Thinking With Type with Graphic Design: the New Basics and the latest addition, Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming. All of Ellen’s books reflect a stellar collaboration with talented students, in addition to having fabulous websites which are resources in and of themselves.

What about you? What are you reading this summer?