Best furniture design books according to redditors
We found 62 Reddit comments discussing the best furniture design books. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 62 Reddit comments discussing the best furniture design books. We ranked the 29 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I feel the same way. I think more people should get into woodworking and this is good execution by the OP. That said, I don't like any of Offerman's designs.
One book I do like is Robert Lang's Shop Drawings of Craftsman Furniture. Great shop drawings of classic Mission/Craftsman furniture. Most pieces are extremely well-proportioned and have excellent joinery. There's a reason why this style has held up so well for over 100 years.
I'm planning to build several living room pieces from that book. Though I have to slightly renovate a house I just bought and finish out my metalworking shop first. So... maybe by the end of the year. Anyhow, this is a great book full of great designs.
What a coincidence, I'm just in the middle of reading a book on these. Among other things, it goes into some detail showing the various hidden compartments, lock mechanisms and other anti-theft methods that were built into these types of cabinets. It was very common to have a hidden drawer or compartment that could only be accessed by removing one or more regular drawers.
Japanese Cabinetry: The Art and Craft of Tansu in case anyone is interested. I randomly picked it up at my local library.
china via communist-subsidized material. Fact. (well, fact that it's standard practice in China, not that the wire is made in China)
Heyo,
This book is what you need, it contains both volumes printed in whole. I've got the first volume on it's own, which I can say is very driven towards simple but strong builds, reusing materials and keeping things minimal, but fully functioning. A lot of these plans changed my day to day life for the better. I highly suggest picking up this book, reading through, and taking your ideas from there. Hope this helps!
FYI: both are reprinted in Nomadic Furniture: D-I-Y Projects That Are Lightweight and Light on the Environment from 2008.
An Essential Reading List For Designers
Source: www.tomfaulkner.co.uk
All books have been linked to Amazon for review and possible purchase. Remember to support the authors by purchasing their books. If there are any issues with this listing let me know via comments or pm.
Architecture
Communication Design
Fashion Design
Angela ButtolphEditors of Phaidon ?Furniture Design
Game Design
Graphic Design
Information Design
Industrial Design
(cont'd)
It depends on what you consider cheap. Used options for all of these are available at very reasonable prices, though I don't personally think that the new prices are super high, though I do know of the more expensive books you've probably seen like the Wegner book for closer to a hundred.
http://www.amazon.com/Danish-Modern-Andrew-Hollingsworth/dp/1586858114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450038421&sr=8-1&keywords=danish+modern
http://www.amazon.com/Eames-Gloria-Koenig/dp/3836560216/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1450038421&sr=8-3&keywords=danish+modern
http://www.amazon.com/Mid-Century-Modern-Interiors-Furniture-Details/dp/1840914068/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1450038421&sr=8-4&keywords=danish+modern
http://www.amazon.com/Danish-Modern-Beyond-Scandinavian-Heywood-wakefield/dp/0764322168/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1450038421&sr=8-7&keywords=danish+modern
This is the one I would get:
http://www.amazon.com/Scandinavian-Modern-Magnus-England/dp/1849754349/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1450038421&sr=8-5&keywords=danish+modern
Hanks is getting ready to make this book into a moviehttps://www.amazon.com/Factory-Man-Furniture-Offshoring-American/dp/031623141X
Great read by the way
Looks like no one has replied yet. I do not have what you seek unfortunately, but the one reference I have in invaluable: https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Cabinetmaking-Construct-Publishing-Subassemblies/dp/1565233697
It does not contain actual plans or guides, but a hundred furniture examples and how they were assembled.
Hopefully someone else will have a better reference for you.
> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The painting The Young Ladies of Avignon by Picasso was initially scorned but is now considered to be seminal to the development of both cubism and modern art.
I don’t have upholstery knowledge but I do have this book. I feel like I need to take a class to truly understand it all, but that means another $500+
I really like Bill Hylton's Illustrated Cabinetmaking.
You might also benefit from Marc Spagnuolo's recent book Essential Joinery.
As one commenter mentioned, you might want to pick up this book
https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Cabinetmaking-Construct-Publishing-Subassemblies/dp/1565233697
This has blown-up diagrams of virtually every possible design of every piece of residential cabinetry.
If you don't own this book, you do yourself a disservice.
yup
https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Man-Furniture-Offshoring-American/dp/031623141X
chinese furniture manufacturers will literally work for no profit.
then the government pays them government crony cash so they can survive and profit
that's on top of the built in advantage of 10% for ALL products china manufactures because they pegged their currency
Here's a walk-through of a table build I did several years ago. It's by no means exhaustive, but it does cover all of the fundamentals (plus it's a pretty fast read), so it might be a good place to start.
"Designing Furniture" is an older book, but it covers a lot of ground regarding design, construction techniques to consider, etc.
Fine Woodworking also has a book titled, "Woodworking Techniques: Best Methods for Building Furniture (can't find a link) that is a terrific reference.
The Great Book of Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture has VERY good drawings of many pieces, along with pretty detailed instructions for how to do various operations in the correct style.
It's good that you have some experience because the book is not really for beginners.
There is a series with titles like 500 Tables that I think are pretty good to have around for inspiration...obviously not all mid-century but the thing about inspiration is you should be stealing from EVERYWHERE. Besides those there are numerous books on JUST mid-century modern furniture. My only gripe on this guy is the mix of butt joints and miter joints on the top but it looks really sharp. Nicely done.
You might want to look in to the Fine Woodworking magazine "design books." Old editions can be picked up on Amazon used pretty cheaply:
E.g. Design Book Six
Another series I really like is the "500 series" They got one for just about every narrow focus you might be into. Here's a couple to get you started:
500 Tables
400 Wood Boxes
He sounds like a good recipient for a Buddha Board.
I'd also think of a pile of great books that delve into the therapy/specialty he's interested in, knowledge goes with any lifestyle. Or maybe a book on how to build furniture yourself that's easy to make and light on the environment.
> Preferably something basic, that improves quality of life and will last a lifetime.
Victorinox Swiss army knife with lots of necessary features. For $50 I don't know too many things that will last a lifetime, maybe someone else here knows better.
I think this is pretty close to what you're looking for.
Illustrated Cabinetmaking:
It's very well received and maybe will even inspire you to make some sawdust of your own...
This book has hundreds of pages of exploded drawing of all kinds of furniture. It doesn't have detailed measurements, but for an advanced woodworker, that's okay because you would probably size it to suit your needs.
Newer paperback:
Illustrated Cabinetmaking: How to Design and Construct Furniture That Works (American Woodworker)
Original hardback edition:
Illustrated Cabinetmaking (Reader's Digest Woodworking)
I would go on Amazon and begin searching for books related to the matter. Obviously look for books with high reviews, but also pay attention to content. For instance, I saw a book on Amazon about the Eames furniture, but it didn't go into any specifics about design... It was mostly published as a picture book.
It sounds like you would be better suited for books that go into details on the design of furniture, not just looking at images that don't really provide much information.
This book and this book seem like helpful resources.
There's no such thing as the "best coffee table", or any other piece of furniture. There are a huge variety of designs in furniture, and all have different preferred or required joinery, tools, hardware, storage, wood species, etc, and that's not even mentioning aesthetics.
If you want to know how furniture is designed, there are many resources available. I don't have a lot of books on design, but one I have that I enjoy is Illustrated Cabinetmaking. It provides 'typical' tables/chests/desks/etc designs, as opposed to specific designs. It explains how to size different parts of certain pieces - how tall a writing desk should be, how wide a dining table should be, etc.
Furniture design isn't copyrighted - you can copy a Maloof chair or a Krenov cabinet as closely to the original as you like, and most of the time the techniques and tools required aren't that difficult to figure out on your own, or from other resources.
"Illustrated Cabinet Making", Bill Hylton
Show all common woodworking joints, and how all types of furniture is put together. It does not tell you how to make each joint. It's up to you to put these patterns to good use.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Cabinetmaking-Design-Construct-Furniture/dp/1565233697
I did buy this book recently.
Hans J. Wegner: Just One Good Chair https://www.amazon.com/dp/3775738096/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_IQfzCbKXDMXRS
It is pretty good but focuses mostly on his more widely known pieces. I believe he designed over 500 chairs, and I have never seen a consolidated list. I personally learn just by browsing auctions and looking for pieces which are reasonably priced.
I recently read Disability Meets Design, and feel like this article would be a great critique of the book. The focus on high art/fashion as the beauty standard seems to really ignore the lived realities of most people with disabilities.
If you like Shaker style furniture try Shop Drawings of Shaker Furniture.
I recommend a book called Illustrated Cabinetmaking
Covers this exact question, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
The Amazon preview doesn't do it justice. The first section of the book is all about the theory of crafting with wood, compensating for the way wood expands and contracts, and using specific joints to account for it.
This is a book specifically for rustic furniture, but I think it's a good one for beginners. He has written another book or two over making boxes as well. http://www.amazon.com/Rustic-Furniture-Basics-Doug-Stowe/dp/1600850766
There's a few books you can get to start things out. If you go through them and it doesn't diminish your passion but increases it, they'll set you on course to get started on your own. They also are worth reading if you've already begun.
Source here for this list of books with additional ones (that I haven't personally seen or read).
Edit:
Apologies if these are in the sidebar. I'm on mobile and can't view it.
Illustrated Cabinetmaking details quite a bit of furniture construction. It touches on joinery, the where and why. It covers beds, chests, kitchen cabinets (wall hanging and bases) and many more. The plans are not detailed. Most are simply a blown-up or cutaway drawing of the piece itself but the author included source information.
Here's 2 books you can read about china fucking everyone over on trade. both on the macro level here
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitalism/dp/1596915986
and the micro level here
https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Man-Furniture-Offshoring-American/dp/031623141X
is it my fault you're a naive fuck who thinks china will abide by these SELF REPORTING bullshit metrics?
https://www.amazon.com/Spruce-Step-Step-Upholstery-Design/dp/1612121373/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542788901&sr=1-1&keywords=Spruce
How about a chest?
When well designed and executed, a simple storage chest (foot locker, blanket chest, hope chest, et cetera) can be an elegant and beautiful thing.
See if your local library has this. It's full of amazing inspirations.
Sounds good to me!
Can I suggest a personal book that is more related to interaction design/industrial design than UX?
The guy who wrote it heads my Interaction Design course and I felt it to have some really good insights into designing both physical and screen-based products for disabled people.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Meets-Disability-Graham-Pullin/dp/0262516748
Check this book out. One of the icons of MCM in my opinion! Complete Kagan
I can't say I have seen asian or germanic styles books but maybe something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Drawings-Greene-Furniture-Masterpieces/dp/1892836297/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395865171&sr=1-8&keywords=arts+and+crafts+furnitur
there is also a series on arts and crafts from stickley
http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Drawings-Craftsman-Furniture-Stickley/dp/1892836122
might lead you into a direction?
>More cons, dude. More cons.
Hilarious. The guy above you is absolutely right.
You? You literally just wrote platitudes about a theoretical world that has never existed, does not exist, will never exist, and can not exist.
I'll walk ya through a trip out here in the world that actually exists, lil fella........
>America hasn't gotten to be the best in the world because we refuse to work with other countries.
No, america was "the best" basically since WW2 because of that war. All the other industrial economies on earth were bombed to shit and we were basically the only economy in town with the advantages of very little to no industrial competition. We were "the best" specifically because we did NOT "share" with the world, but did all the manufacturing ourselves and had huge advantages both from that and the bretton woods agreement denominating in our dollar. Oh, and we had a massive lead in the oil industry, the largest industry in human history.
>the rust belt got hit by a down turn is certainly unfortunate and I want to help you guys fix it
No, it was forced to compete with essentially slave labor in china since 2001 when china entered the wto, and also NAFTA did harm us by essentially allowing outsourcing cheap/slave labor. Now certainly you dont know history, but this slave labor has been a problem for millenia. Lincoln talked about it in the lincoln douglas debates, de toqueville talked about it while touring america also, and shit, you can go back 2,000 years to the Roman senate when they were talking about the adverse effects of slave labor on the stability of THEIR republic as the working roman yeoman was thrown off his land and replaced with slaves.
Now here's the other part about china that you guys never talk about. China outright pays money losing businesses to stay in business and employ their citizens. For example a furniture producer in china can run a massive operation at break even and get paid a percent BY THEIR GOVERNMENT in lieu of actual profit. So how long can an american company compete against a chinese state monopoly business that is SPECIFICALLY MONOPOPOSTICALLY TARGETING american industries to put them out of business. With china's labor so cheap, americans literally cant even match chinese costs at ZERO PROFIT. Our COST of manufacturing is more than they SELL in stores for. Here's one of many books written about this
https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Man-Furniture-Offshoring-American/dp/031623141X
so now we see america's political leadership outright allowing shipping tens of MILLIONS of jobs straight to china, who specifically operates like a monopolistic predator to put american
businesses under.
>What about implementing smart controls for the inevitable impacted areas?
Yeah, but when trump suggests tariffs to prevent countries WITHOUT WAGE RESTRICTIONS, WITHOUT REGULATIONS, WITHOUT ENVIRONMENTAL RESTRICTIONS, you act like this vague "globalism is good" mantra will save you in spite of the reality of the situation.
You cannot win a rigged labor game against 1,400,000,000 chinese, 1,300,000,000 indians, 1,000,000,000 africans. American workers lives will be shit if they are forced to compete against essentially slave labor.
as lincoln said in the debates, the very high cost of non slave labor IS THE IMPETUS TO ADD EFFICIENCY AND IMPROVE OPERATIONS.
so instead of american companies being forced by our higher labor costs to innovate, the chinese are advancing in that technology because THEY are the ones with the labor cost issue now, while we revert to consumer state and just stagnate
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966
so their manufacturing gets better and better as they build on the tech they implement while jerkos like you primly give away our economy and reduce us to a client economy