Top Product Design books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Product Design books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Product Design

Understanding the concepts of Product Design starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car

In this lively and entertaining work, Witold Rybczynski―hailed as “one of the best writers on design working today” by Publishers Weekly―tells the story of the most distinctive cars in history and the artists, engineers, dreamers, and gearheads who created them. Delving into more than 170 years of ingenuity in design, technology, and engineering, he takes us from Carl Benz’s three-wheel motorc…

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Solving Product Design Exercises: Questions & Answers

Learn how to solve and present exercises like these, that top startups use to interview designers for product design and UI/UX roles. Today top companies are looking for business-minded designers who are not just focused on visuals. With this book, you can practice this kind of mindset, prepare for job interviews, learn how to interview other designers and find concepts for projects for your p…

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The Laws of Simplicity

Ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design that teach us how to need less but get more. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me" manuals. The iPod's clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves c…

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Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

In Change by Design, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the celebrated innovation and design firm, shows how the techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of business. Change by Design is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders who seek to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product, or service to drive new alternatives for busine…

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Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components (Packaging may vary)

Our phones, computers, and appliances are made of hundreds of internal components, each precisely engineered to perform a certain function, but none intended to actually be seen. Through painstakingly executed, vividly detailed cross-section photography, Open Circuits reveals the surprising—and often accidental—beauty hiding inside the electronic components that drive our everyday devices.

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The Art of Product Design: Changing How Things Get Made

Embrace Open Engineering and accelerate the design and manufacturing processes. Product development is a team sport, but most companies don't practice it that way. Organizations should be drawing on the creativity of engaged customers and outsiders, but instead they rely on the same small group of internal "experts" for new ideas. Designers and engineers should be connecting with marketing, sa…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Product Design Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Product Design, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

The Secret Life of LEGO® Bricks: The Story of a Design Icon

LEGO® bricks are design icons and marvels of engineering. Having remained virtually unchanged for over fifty years, the brick is still the center of the LEGO System in Play, in which each brick connects to every other brick, allowing the construction of almost anything you can imagine. LEGO minifigures may be the friendly smiling faces of the LEGO world, but bricks in all their different shape…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Design of Everyday Things

The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Since Don’t Make Me Think was first published in 2000, hundreds of thousands of Web designers and developers have relied on usability guru Steve Krug’s guide to help them understand the principles of intuitive navigation and information design. Witty, commonsensical, and eminently practical, it’s one of the best-loved and most recommended books on the subject. Now Steve returns with fresh pers…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D printing: Designing and printing practical objects

The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D printing is written for the person who wants to use their printer to make practical, durable items for everyday use.Whether rebuilding civilization from your jungle hideaway, fighting off zombie hordes, or just printing a new plastic bit for your latest project, The Zombie Apocalypse Guide to 3D printing has what you need to get the job done. If you are going …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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👋 Hi there! I’m Rina, a Product Designer at Meta. Previously, I was a UX designer working on Alexa at Amazon working on communications, device onboarding, fitness, and visual UI systems. Before transitioning into UX, I studied Architecture at Cornell University. I have mentored 40+ people (via Mentorcruise, Design Lab, …

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I can help you: - Improve your resume and portfolio - Practice portfolio presentation, whiteboard challenge, app critique, behavioral interviews - Advance in your career - Improve your project work I'm a Senior Product Designer with 8 years of experience. Currently, at Klarna, Europe's Fintech unicorn. Previously, I worked at …

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