Adrian Shaughnessy

Adrian Shaughnessy is a self-taught graphic designer, editor, writer and co-founder of Unit Editions, an independent publishing venture that produces high quality and good value design books. He ran the design group Intro and is also known for his book How to Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul. Adrian also teaches at the Royal College of Art.

If you could recommend 3 books to anyone, what would they be?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Many books have changed my life, and in many different ways. But ‘Portrait of the Artist’ changed my life in ways that are permanent. It was the first book that made me fall in love with language, and it was the first book that made me realise we all have an inner life. But most of all it taught me that words, when put together with precision and feeling, can have the most profound effect. I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to feel the power of language and the ability to dip into the human mind.

Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair

This is a book for anyone who wants to see the world in a different way. Sinclair is one of the pioneers of psychogeography. He sets off on walks around East London and records his impressions. He spots historic and contemporary resonances – the sort of stuff we see every day but mostly fail to appreciate. Sinclair finds a way to record and report what he sees. It’s like a psychedelic road trip – on foot.

Reeling by Pauline Kael

I read a lot of movie criticism. Film criticism is often more enjoyable than the films. If you want to know what criticism is, read Pauline Kael, a critic with a brilliant and incisive mind. Her reviews throbbed with passionate engagement and a hatred of the mediocre and the false. Even when she wrote disparagingly about a film I love (Blade Runner), her views were so precise and penetrating that I was made to see the film’s faults and shortcomings.

What are you reading now?

A New Program for Graphic Design by David Reinfurt

I’m reading ‘A New Program for Graphic Design’ by David Reinfurt. I’m also reading some travel books – maybe that’s because of Covid – no travel makes us want to find alternatives.

Whose reading list are you most curious about?

“I’d be interested in the reading choices of anyone who reads. It’s like looking at people’s bookshelves – always interesting.”

— Adrian Shaughnessy