Every designer has their favorite bookstore, a place they go to savor the delight of different paper stocks, to admire various typographic treatments and cover designs, and to uncover great tomes investigating design history and theory in thoughtful detail.
If you want to get to know a city’s design community, there really is no better way to do so than to explore its independent book and magazine stores: These are the source, after all, of great ideas. From ramshackle, historic zine shops to luxe, modern, and spacious art book temples, here’s our list of the world’s best design-oriented bookstores for the jet-set creative. (Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for any excess baggage weight you might incur as a result of these recommendations.)Arcana Los, Angeles
Filled with over 100,000 books, with an enthusiastic and knowledgable staff, there is no better place to source rare and out-of-print volumes or hyper-specialized design texts than Arcana. A visual and intellectual treat, the store occupies a gorgeously designed gallery-like 5,000 square foot open plan room in LA’s historic Helms Bakery building, and its books are displayed on immense metal shelves that divide the space into intimate rooms, creating what the designer called “a forest of books.” Natural light floods the polished concrete floors, making the shop a retreat, and a rewarding space for local designers and international visitors to browse conceptual art titles, hard-to-find magazines, obscure catalog, and tantalizing artist monographs in monkish contemplation.
As with all the greatest bookshops, you’ll visit looking for one particular title, and leave with something else entirely, possibly something signed and numbered and way over your budget.8675 Washington Blvd, Culver City www.arcanabooks.com
Livraria da Vila Lorena, São Paulo
Standing out provocatively in the busy, glossy neighborhood of Jardins, filled with expensive designer stores, Livraria da Vila Lorena is a tempting temple of books that smartly makes its own cool design statement in this most chaotic of cities. Great local architect Isay Weinfeld’s post-Brutalist masterpiece, complete with a dream storefront made of glowing revolving shelves, is a sharply modern, loving tribute to the classic idea of a secondhand bookstore; the selection here is general and varied, but with a precise and expert selection of graphic design and architecture titles that match the distinctly modern mood of the interior.
002, Alameda Lorena, 1731 www.livrariadavila.com.br
Papercup, Beirut
Specializing in art, design, architecture, and photography and ideally located in the fashionable, vibrant bar packed Mar Mikhael neighborhood in the liberal north of the city, Papercup features a wide selection of international and local magazines as well as children’s publications, graphic novels, and hand-made stationery. Gorgeous tiles cover the floor, and there’s a laid-back sprinkling of midcentury furniture and a small cafe area that makes Papercup a deliberately cosy spot for what the owners describe as “coffee-infused book therapy.” The shop draws its unique strength by highlighting the Lebanese capital’s lively and diverse history of publishing and it’s independent media and by providing an event space that local publishers use for book and magazine launches.
Printed Matter, New York
No definitive list of bookstores for designers could ignore New York’s iconic Printed Matter. The venerable nonprofit founded by art critic Lucy R Lippard with conceptualist artist Sol LeWitt and other art-world personalities 40 years ago is more than simply a shop dedicated to artist’s books and related publications; it’s an experience. An archive teeming with paper, it overflows with decades of underground art zines, chunky hand-scrawled manifestos, small-edition curios, Risograph comics, and gorgeous, hard-to-find hardbound monographs. Printed Matter also functions as a salon for printmakers and print lovers; it’s been…
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