More Than Bookstores, These Shops are Must-visit Meccas to the Printed Word
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly
211 Rue Bernard O, Montréal, QC H2T 2K5, Canada
For the comic and graphic novel enthusiast, Montreal’s Drawn & Quarterly is a revered pilgrimage site. The thriving store is the physical location of world famous graphic novel publisher Drawn & Quarterly, stocking its own titles as well as books produced by other international alt-presses, like McSweeneys, Fantagraphics, Koyama, New Directions, Breakdown Press, and more. There’s no other place in the world so comprehensive. Whether you’re a comic regular or new to the scene, you’ll be drawn in and swept away by the varied illustration styles and innovative visual storytelling on draft.
Art Metropole, Toronto
88 King St. West, 2nd floor, Toronto, ON, M5V1N6, Canada
This legendary, artist-run non-profit publishes, distributes, and exhibits artists’ publications and other materials. Founded in 1974 by Canadian artist collective General Idea, Art Metropole has always been on the cutting edge of Toronto’s artistic community. Here, you’ll find video, audio, and electronic media carefully set beside bespoke books and thoughtful printed matter on conceptual art, which you can read in between viewings of Art Metropole’s must-see exhibitions and installations.
Penguin Shop
320 Front Street West, Toronto, Canada, M5V 3B6
Here’s one for the committed collector of Penguin Classics, that famous sixpenny, orange-spined series that has become a 20th-century design icon. Penguin Random House’s first permanent shop is here in the lobby of its Canadian headquarters. It’s packed with 300 titles, branded mugs, notebooks, and brightly colored tees. Toronto-based design studio Figure3 created mobile bookshelving for the tiny space, designed to mimic classic Penguin spines. Better still, company staff—both editors and designers—work the store. Go pick a Penguin.
William Stout Architectural Books
804 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94133, USA
Carrying over 70,000 titles in the fields of architecture, graphic and industrial design and urban planning, William Stout Architectural Books is a vital United States resource for anyone in the creative industry. This space was founded 30 years ago when a former architect decided that the US needed a place that stocked the hard to find tomes he appreciated in Europe. Design professionals will let out heartfelt sighs of admiration as they flip through the rare compendiums that they find here.
Hennessey + Ingalls
300 S Santa Fe Ave M, Los Angeles, CA 90013, USA
Since 1963, Hennessey + Ingalls has been Southern California’s largest and most extensive source for books on all things visual. With thousands of art, interior design, graphics, photography, fashion, gardening, and decorative art books, you’re sure to find anything specific that you’re looking for in this 5,000-square-foot space. In 2016, the shop relocated its entire operation to downtown LA, closing its Santa Monica and Hollywood stores, to become one of the major go-tos in the city’s rapidly developing Arts District.
Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books
2916 N.E. Alberta St., Portland, OR 97211
Old and new beautifully collide in this essential Portland destination, a shop and gallery admired by creative locals for its intriguing mix of contemporary design books and vintage postcards, photographs, and other scraps of inspiring antique ephemera. On this snug spot’s walls you’ll find a monthly rotation of contemporary artworks by local artists and illustrators; and below, a tightly packed inventory of titles are aligned tidily in square wooden shelving units. Between bright tempting books on the functionality of decorated letters or contemporary Polaroid art, you might spy a copy of our very own 99U magazine. Nothing average here.
Dallas’ Joule Hotel, The Taschen Library
1530 Main St, Dallas, TX 75201, USA
Stay at the Joule Hotel in Dallas for some basic rest and recreation, but the smart boutique hotel’s Taschen Library will really send you places. The German publishing company, famous for its collectable books on art, photography, interior design, architecture, film, and fashion, curated this small, cozy shop in 2013, just by the Texan hotel’s lobby. It’s been called the “Joule’s jewel box of a bookshop”. re you’ll find items with a jewel’s price tag too, with some volumes ranging reaching up to $1,000+. Quite a trip.
Image courtesy of Dallas’ Joule Hotel, The Taschen Library.
Graham Foundation Bookshop
4 W Burton Pl, Chicago, IL 60610, USA
Located on the premises of a prestigious art foundation, this bookstore offers a selection of publications produced by grantees along with titles related to its public programming, as well as new forward-thinking books on architecture, urbanism, and design. It also carries monographs, catalogues, and theory-based titles from the likes of Sternberg Press, MIT Press, Spector Books, and the Architectural Association. Designers will swoon at the shop’s white mesh display cases, which snake around the wood paneled room, designed by architect Ania Jaworska.
Horse & Buggy Press and Friends
1116 Broad St, Durham, NC 27705
If you’re in Durham and find yourself pining for some traditional, hand-cranked letterpress goodies, you’re in luck. Look no further than the Horse & Buggy Press and Friends. Two sturdy 1960s Vandercook proof presses sit at the bank of this charming graphic design and book production studio, and at the front of the 500-square foot location, you’ll discover an art gallery and gift-shop (presumably constituting the “…and Friends”). The store showcases work by industrious craftspeople from across the Southeast—whether glass and pottery or printmaking and drawings. There’s also a top-notch selection of books and magazines about all things craft based. Craft enthusiasts who make it there will find plenty to share.
Ooga Booga
943 N Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA
No “best bookstore for designers list” is complete without the cultish Ooga Booga, a hidden away second floor shop in LA’s Chinatown that carries a ramshackle mix of books, zines, mixtapes, records, home goods, and apparel. The store programs—from concerts and film screenings to much-anticipated book releases—in its second location, known as Ooga Twooga and located in the art space 356 Mission. You owe it to yourself to boogie on down to Ooga Booga whenever you can.
Actual Source
50 E 500 N Suite 103, Provo, UT 84606, USA
Those with an eye for the deadpan and heavily typographic will undoubtedly find what they’re looking for here. Actual Source is the collaborative design practice of Davis Ngarupe and JP Haynie, and together they create publications, identities, websites, and spaces. But Actual Source also ambitiously collaborates with designers to release limited edition books, magazines, fonts, clothing, and furniture, which they sell at their office space in Provo and online. In the mood for experimental type specimens, that look like no other specimen you’ve ever seen, or a contemporary magazine musing on the Bauhaus? Look no further.
Image courtesy of Actual Source.
Ulises
31 E Columbia Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125, USA
This Philly bookshop was named after the conceptual book artist and theorist Ulises Carrión, who once said, “a book is a sequence of spaces”. The shop’s owners have taken this idea literally, carefully planning how each book is displayed in the warehouse-style interior of the store. Bookshelves mounted to the wall show off carefully selected tomes like precious paintings, with their covers facing outwards.
Artland Book Company
B1 #122 Jen Ai Road, Sec. 3, Taipei, 10657, Taiwan
This special Taiwanese store has been importing art books from around the world since 1985—making it a global go-to for artists, designers, and art lovers. Stocked from floor to ceiling with weighty art tomes, Artland offers paper-y compendiums on everything from seashells and gardens to Renaissance painting and Taiwanese traditional folk art. Books are arranged in a sleek and modern space, and you’re sure to leave with a new coffee table book (or two).
Daikanyama T-Site, Tokyo, Japan
17-5 Sarugakucho, Shibuya 150-0033, Tokyo Prefecture
If you’re a contemporary Japanese design enthusiast, then T-Site is not to be missed. In a gorgeous modern building, designed from T-shaped bricks, you’ll discover a crisp and unusual selection of design and lifestyle books and products. The stores’ curators match books with other items with pleasing care: one blogger has recounted how beside a recipe book for Japanese shaved ice, the store sells locally produced glasses to house the dessert; next to tomes on obscure psychedelic illustrators, you’ll apparently find matching tea cup sets; beside books on historical artists, you’ll discover a series of figurines inspired by them. If the afternoon isn’t enough time to make all your discoveries, you’re in luck: this shop is open until 2am.
Basheer Graphic Books
Bras Basah Complex #04-19, 231 Bain St, Singapore 180231
You’ll find this legendary store in the Bras Basah Complex of Singapore, a mall area with the largest number of bookstores in a single complex in the country. Catering specifically to designers and artists, it’s here you’ll be able to find any book from any discipline that you’re looking for, whether calligraphy, animation, interior design, or graphics. Get lost in this creative community haunt to find what you’re looking for.
The Book Society
22 Jahamun-ro 10-gil, Sajik-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
There is no better place to find books designed and published by graphic designers for graphic designers than this South Korean independent shop and publishing house. One might go so far as to say it is a wonderland of design. Bold, purple posters fill the walls. Tables are stacked high with curiously bound publications of every color imaginable. Those with a love of experimental typography and unusual paper stocks will feel right at home. Deeply informed by the use of printed materials by conceptual artists of the 1960s, The Book Society is interested in printed matter as both cultural artifact and network.
Art & Design Bookstore, Mumbai
04 Ramnimi, Mandlik Road, Colaba, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001, India
A five-minute walk through the Kalaghoda art precinct, which houses historical museums and art galleries, you’ll spot this small boutique, which is stacked with striking design volumes. Elegantly tiled floors and sturdy shelving make this space perfect for some contemplation. Take your time taking in the eclectic journals from all around the world as well as catalogues by local artists. For practicing designers inspired by what they find, the store also sells artisan notebooks and sketchbooks.
Minoa
Vişnezade Mahallesi, Süleyman Seba Cd. 52/A, 34357 Beşiktaş/İstanbul, Turkey
Make sure you have plenty of time when you visit Minoa. In this bookstore and café, a whole day can pass by without you even noticing. Hours might be spent browsing the political comics from Turkey’s thriving new comic scene, or peeling back the pages of sleek architecture compendiums situated under the store’s great chandelier, which are adorned with books. Minoa organizes regular reading events and pop-up concerts, which you can enjoy with a glass of Turkish wine or an intense expresso. We also hear that the breakfast shakshouka is very good. See you in a week.
Happy Valley
294 Smith St, Collingwood VIC 3066, Australia
This concept store in the heart of Melbourne’s thriving creative neighborhood caters to the design-minded with its impressive array of art books, modern homeware, and specially selected stationary. You might leave Happy Valley with a classic coffee-table-sized book on Australia’s contemporary gardens and a matching terrarium, or you might be more attracted to the latest Monocle guide and a sea-scented candle. Happy Valley is the ideal place to mix and match your books with your lifestyle.
Perimeter Books, Melbourne
748 High St, Thornbury VIC 3071, Australia
Celebrating independent publishing is what Perimeter Books says it’s all about. Focusing on small press titles, well-crafted design books, and home-grown zines, this clean and bright treasure trove is a go-to for the book-lover meets minimalist. Simple wooden shelves present books with their covers pointed outwards, so that each beautifully produced tome is akin to an objects d’art itself.
Do You Read Me?!
Auguststraße 28, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Wandering the German capital, you’ll perhaps notice the number of people with typographic tote bags reading “Do You Read Me?!” slung over their shoulders. Those with an eye for design should take heed and follow the signs. They will lead you to the bellwether of independent magazine retail, Do You Read Me?!, founded by graphic designer, Mark Kiessling and store manager, Jessica Reitz. At the front of the shop, black walls with black shelving show off each carefully selected magazine as if it were an artwork. At the back, there’s a small yet intelligently curated selection of specialist design and architecture books. Not to be missed, and yes, we read you.
Image courtesy of Do You Read Me?!
Motto
Skalitzer Str. 68, 10997 Berlin, Germany
Hidden in the back of a typical Berlin courtyard and traceable by the sound of experimental music streaming from its door, Motto is filled with singular finds. Its selection is especially on point because Motto the store belongs to Motto the distribution company, which spreads art catalogues and independent periodicals worldwide. The shop’s focus is on photography, design, theory, and art books, and at the back of its Kreuzberg location you’ll also find a curious selection of zines (and possibly the store’s snoozing black cat). Niche titles sit alongside titles released by international publishers, are scattered in an order that, wonderfully, seems to lack any rhyme or reason.
IMS Melkmarkt
Melkmarkt 17, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
Located in Antwerp’s historic city center is IMS Melkmarkt: a magazine store reckoned to stock over 10,000 titles. If that sounds like a lot of magazines to fit into one place, that’s because it is. You won’t find much empty space in this wonderfully jam-packed store. It stocks stimulating international titles from all over, seemingly including anything you set your heart on. If you fancy a trip, bring the whole family: there’s a section of train themed magazines here for granddad, a tattoo section for your niece, and a little collection of potted plant books for the estranged cousin who has just got into landscape gardening.
Chandal
Carrer d’en Tantarantana, 16, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Those who visit Chandal say it’s like a visit to the past, in a good way. This retro concept shop specializes in Polaroid cameras, records, and..
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