Aaron and Steve got me a friggin' awesome holiday gift: Phaidon Design Classics.

Now, I've never heard of this series before today, and I'm not sure why. The three-book collection is an encyclopedia of (industrial) design icons and the short histories behind them - it's the kind of stuff I just gobble up.

Now, if you end up clicking that link, you're going to find that the top three reviews talk about the case. And I am going to as well. The case is RETARDED. For a book about great iconic designs, the case demonstrates the antithesis of it: how to design something that looks cool but is utterly frustrating. 

The case is intended to allow you to carry all three books at once, which is cool inconcept, but it utterly fails. Because of the way the wait is distributed with the three books, you end up holding the books at a funny angle (which gives me a workout, which I guess is positive - give those trendy hipsters some manly muscles!)

Don't even get me started on how long it takes to get the books back IN the case (it's like a Chinese puzzle, I swear). After I got all the books back in, I dropped them on my car seat, and then they fell out again. Frustration.

Phaidon, are you listening? Get rid of the case. It actually detracts from the books.

Back to the book, though. Here's what it looks like inside:

I've been thumbing through the book tonight, so much to learn from it! It makes me want to be an industrial designer... but then I realized that maybe software design today will one day have a book like this 50 years from now - I really hope MT gets itself in there.

For those of you who like books like this, I also highly recommend a more text-heavy book: The Design of Everyday Things. I had a great time reading through that book as well. 

Thanks Aaron and Steve!