Designers & Books: About Books That Inspire Creativity, Innovation, and Invention

Phil Patton's Notable Books of 2012

A Venn diagram of designers and Porsche fans reveals a major overlap. Sober, businesslike design academics or executives turn into positive Bieber buffs when the subject of the quintessential German sports car comes up. As respectably modern as a Braun coffee mill or Vitsoe shelving system, a Porsche 356 or 911 possesses the additional advantage of being speedy and sensual. These are the people who will enjoy Karl Ludvigsen's latest Porsche book, from Bentley, the auto book publisher. Ludvigsen is highly regarded by automobile collectors and historians; his three-volume Porsche history, Porsche: Excellence Was Expected, is standard. One such collector is comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who is very serious about his sports cars. (He constructed a special garage for them, at great expense, in Manhattan.) Seinfeld has written a foreword to Porsche: Origin of the Species. The book, arriving in the year that F.A. Porsche died, tells of the early days of the Porsche company, in Gmund, Austria, and the birth of the mythic 356.

Review from and courtesy of Designers & Books

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