Vanya RawatProduct Designer

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©2025 Vanya Rawat


A growing collection of books that have shaped
how I think, design, and see the world.




Universal Methods of Design by Bruce Hanington and Bella Martin
Meaningful Stuff: Design That Lasts by Jonathan Chapman
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
The Reflective Practitioner by Donald A. Schon
Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
How to Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian
Shaughnessy
The New Designer: Rejecting Myths, Embracing Change by Manuel Lima
Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Independence, Autonomy & the Making of Worlds by Arturo Escobar

Speculative Everything: Design Fiction and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby
Design Aesthetics: Theoretical Basics and Studies in Implication by Mads Nygaard Folkman
The Aesthetics of Imagination in Design by Mads Nygaard Folkman
Living with Complexity by Donald A. Norman
Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World by Kabe Treggiden
Design Things by Thomas Binder, Giorgio De Michelis, Pelle Ehn, Giulio Jacucci, Per Linde & Ina Wagner
Design by Accident: For a New History of Design by Alexandra Midal
Design as Politics by Tony Fry

Spooky Technology by Daragh Byrne
Emotional Design by Don Norman
Critical Fabulations: Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design by Daniela K. Rosner
Making Design Theory by Johan Redstrom
Designing the X by
Dennis Frenchman
The Craft of Research by
Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, & Wayne C. Booth


​Biodesign: Nature + Science + Creativity by William Myers
The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon

Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy by Tony Fry
Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell


Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef
Müller-Brockmann

Design by Use: The Everyday Metamorphosis of Things by Uta Brandes

The Design of Everyday Things by Elizabeth Shove, Matthew Watson, Martin Hand & Jack Ingram
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton
Design and the Question of History by Tony Fry
Things That Talk by Lorraine  Daston
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braungart &
William McDonough

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine Benyus
AI Ethics by Mark Coeckelbergh
Jugaad Innovation by Jaideep Prabhu
Real World Research by Colin Robinson
Are we human? Notes of Archaeology of Design by Beatriz Colomina & Mark Wigley
What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy

Navigating Ambiguity: Creating Opportunity in a World of Unknowns by Andrea Small & Kelly Schmutte
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Change by Design by Tim Brown


Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design by Kristina Hook
The Craftsman by Richard Sennet
Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows

The Space between Look and Read by Susan M. Hagan
Design, Empathy, Interpretation by Ilpo Koskinen
Metaphors We Live by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
UX Metrics and ROI by Nielsen Norman Group
Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Create with JavaScript in p5.js by Benedikt Gross
The Little Book of Design Research Ethics by IDEO
The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture by Victor Papanek
Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives by Claudia Mareis, Nina Paim

Just Enough Research by Erika Hall
Designing Experiences by J. Rossman and Mathew D. Duerden
This is Service Design Doing
Hooked by Nir Eyal
Convivial Toolbox by Liz Sander
Typography (Graphic Design in Context) by Denise G. Crisp
Effective Data Storytelling by Brent Dykes
Sprint by Jake Knapp