TED Books Box Set: The Creative Mind: The Art of Stillness, The Future of Architecture, and Judge This

Three smart, playful, original TED books from a leading architect, designer, and writer in one collection—The Art of Stillness, The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings, and Judge This—inspire a more creative life.

In The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, travel writer Pico Iyer considers the unexpected rewards of staying put and reveals a counterintuitive truth: The more ways we have to connect, the more we seem desperate to unplug. Why might a lifelong traveler like Iyer, who has journeyed from Easter Island to Kathmandu, think that sitting quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? In The Art of Stillness Iyer reveals there’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out, and give ourselves permission to be still.

An architect and founder of Architizer.com, Kushner guides readers through the innovative experimentation within the world’s most exciting structures. With stunning full color photographs and detailed explanations, The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings captures the soaring confidence, the thoughtful intelligence, the futuristic wonder, and at times the sheer whimsy of the world’s most inspired and future-looking buildings.

First impressions are everything. They dictate whether something stands out, how we engage with it, whether we buy it, and how we feel. In Judge This, travel through a day in the life of renowned designer Chip Kidd as he takes in first impressions of all kinds. Follow this visual journey with Kidd as he encounters and engages with everyday design, breaking down the good, the bad, the absurd, and the brilliant as only a designer can. Judge This is a design love story, exposing the often invisible beauty and betrayal in simple design choices ones most of us never even think to notice.

Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist long based in both California and Japan. He is the author of numerous books about crossing cultures, among them Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, and The Global Soul. An essayist for Time since 1986, he also publishes regularly in Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and many other publications across the globe.

Marc Kushner is a practicing architect who splits his time between designing buildings at HWKN, the architecture firm he cofounded, and amassing the world’s architecture on the website he runs, Architizer.com. Both have the same mission: to reconnect the public with architecture. Kushner’s core belief is that architecture touches everyone—and everyone is a fan of architecture—even if they don’t know it yet. New forms of media empower people to shape the built environment, and that means better buildings that make better cities that make a better world.

Chip Kidd is a designer/writer in New York City. His book cover designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked nonstop since 1986, have helped create a revolution in the art of American book packaging. He is the recipient of the National Design Award for Communications, as well as the Use of Photography in Design award from the International Center of Photography. Kidd has published two novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners, and is also the author of Batman: Death By Design and the coauthor and designer of True Prep, the sequel to the beloved Official Preppy Handbook. His 2012 TED Talk has been viewed 1.2 million times and is cited as one of the “funniest of the year.” He is most recently the author of the bestselling GO: A Kidd’s Guide To Graphic Design.