Self-help · Similar reads
Books like Making and Breaking the Grid
The best books like Making and Breaking the Grid are The New Typography, A Pattern Language, and Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques. Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara is about grid systems, graphic design, layout. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- The New Typography
01
Jan Tschichold · Philosophy
The New Typography, published in German in 1928 as Die neue Typographie, is Jan Tschichold's manifesto for a modernist approach to printed communication.
Shares graphic design and typography with Making and Breaking the Grid.
Read the summary → - A Pattern Language
02
Christopher Alexander · Science
A Pattern Language is an extraordinary attempt to describe, in systematic form, the conditions that make human habitats feel alive.
A kindred self-help read.
Read the summary → - Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques
03
Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques
Valérie Filiou · Self-help
Abstract Painting is a practical handbook for painters who want to move beyond representation and learn to work with color, form, and gesture on their own terms.
A kindred self-help read.
Read the summary → - The Elements of User Experience
04
The Elements of User Experience
Jesse James Garrett · Self-help
The Elements of User Experience is Jesse James Garrett's attempt to give the field of web design a shared vocabulary and a structural framework at a moment — 2002 — when web design was still being understood as a single discipline rather than several interrelated ones.
A kindred self-help read.
Read the summary → - Thinking with Type
05
Ellen Lupton · Self-help
Thinking with Type is Ellen Lupton's critical guide to typography — not as a catalog of fonts, but as a discipline for thinking about how written language takes visual form.
Shares graphic design and typography with Making and Breaking the Grid.
Read the summary → - Grid Systems in Graphic Design
06
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
Josef Müller-Brockmann · Philosophy
Josef Müller-Brockmann's Grid Systems in Graphic Design, first published in German and English in 1981 by Niggli Verlag, is the closest thing graphic design has to a foundational technical text.
Both dig into typography.
Read the summary → - How to
07
Michael Bierut · Biography
How to is Michael Bierut's account of thirty-five years of practice as a graphic designer at Pentagram, the world's largest independent design firm.
Both dig into graphic design.
Read the summary → - Just My Type
08
Simon Garfield · History
Just My Type is Simon Garfield's popular history of fonts and typography, aimed at general readers who have become dimly aware that fonts matter without having the vocabulary to explain why.
Both dig into typography.
Read the summary → - Meggs' History of Graphic Design
09
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
Philip B. Meggs · History
Meggs' History of Graphic Design is the standard reference text for the history of visual communication, covering the development of writing and printed images from prehistoric cave markings through the digital revolution.
Both dig into typography.
Read the summary → - The Elements of Typographic Style
10
The Elements of Typographic Style
Robert Bringhurst · Science
The Elements of Typographic Style is Robert Bringhurst's comprehensive treatment of typography as both craft and art.
Both dig into typography.
Read the summary → - The Vignelli Canon
11
Massimo Vignelli · Philosophy
The Vignelli Canon is Massimo Vignelli's summation of a design practice that spanned six decades and produced work ranging from the New York City subway map to the American Airlines identity to corporate identities for Knoll, Bloomingdale's, and dozens of other major institutions.
Both dig into typography.
Read the summary → - 12 Rules for Life
12
Jordan Peterson · Self-help
12 Rules for Life is Jordan Peterson's attempt to distill what clinical psychology, comparative mythology, the Bible, and evolutionary biology say about how to live.
A kindred self-help read.
Read the summary →
Books like Making and Breaking the Grid: quick answers
What are the best books like Making and Breaking the Grid?
The best books like Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara are The New Typography by Jan Tschichold, A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques by Valérie Filiou, The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett, Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Making and Breaking the Grid, such as grid systems, graphic design, layout.
What should I read after Making and Breaking the Grid?
A natural next read after Making and Breaking the Grid is The New Typography by Jan Tschichold. Shares graphic design and typography with Making and Breaking the Grid. Other strong choices are A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques by Valérie Filiou, The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett.
What books are similar to Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara?
Making and Breaking the Grid centers on grid systems, graphic design, layout. Books with a similar feel include The New Typography by Jan Tschichold, A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques by Valérie Filiou, The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett, Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
