Planning out the year ahead is a great time to look around for fresh inspiration. Whether you’re trying to break out from the status quo or are looking to take things to the level, a little reading can help surface new ideas. Every year we ask friends and colleagues in the industry what books they’d recommend, an exercise that usually turns up some interesting new books as well as a few old favorites that are worth a re-read. Here are a few that have been passed on to us and that we’ve added to our reading list for the months ahead. Enjoy!
For those unfamiliar, David Ogilvey was one of the titans of advertising in the middle of the century (think old-school MadMen-esque creative). His advertising showcased a knack for creativity and practicality, and many modern creative advertisers still turn to this book time and again. If you’ve ever been responsible for generating head-turning ads, a copy of this should be on your shelf. You’re guaranteed to pick up a few few tricks.
The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company
Pixar may be the most beloved studio of the 21st century. Go ahead and raise your hand if you haven’t shed a tear at the beginning of “UP!” or fallen for a motley assortment of animated toys. We will gobble up anything that reveals what makes this company magical.
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America
Ah, many a misspent youth was played out amidst the warm glow of the Nintendo screen. Who doesn’t fondly recall the countless hours of furious button clicking, blowing out the dust from those pesky cartridges, or holding down the “A” button to make Mario sprint nonstop? We can’t wait to read the story behind the company behind it all.
We’ve received and given the advice “go with your gut” countless times. Sure, you can wrap some fancy process around a tough decision, but at the end of the day most of us end up right where we started going more with intuition than with data. This book spells out the challenges and pitfalls inherent in this most common — and risky — method of decision-making.
Affected: Emotionally Engaging Customers in the Digital Age
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you are all too aware of what a hot button topic social media has become. If 2019 taught us anything it’s that our maturing social platforms have made it ever easier to manipulate at scale. The problem isn’t purely technical of course, but a potent mix of data, the ubiquity of digital, and fundamental insights about human emotion. We’re eager to dive into this to learn more about the implications this has – not just for us as digital developers and marketers – but for us all.
We could have put any number of O’Reilly books on this list. There are few better ways to quickly get up to speed on a topic. In 2020, we’re going to spend some time brushing up on the ins and outs of designing interfaces, arguably one of the most fundamental skills of the digital age. If you’re looking to do likewise on a particular topic, we highly recommend them.