?????? ???????? ?????????????? ???? ???????????????????? ???? ???????? (in my opinion at least).

I never do these in order, so perhaps this year we'll go in size as that's the way the picture works.

The past years of this are on Medium by the way (i've been doing this a while), but it's sort of gone dead there. I'll stick the past years in the base of the article in case you are interested. It always surprised me how many people took up the tips from those posts.

This turned from a post into an article as there are a few things worth pointing out with each one.

But anyway, here goes;

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This a proper corrective to the tech bro narrative of digital innovation, but also a useful primer in how change actually happens - and how it did actually happen - online. If you work around deciphering what is about to happen next, and to some extent anyone in product and design does, then this may be a key bit of reading. If you work around #web3 and #fanengagement then this may be required reading.

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I spent more of my time debating colours in new brands this year than i ever expected. Partly thats just because i think we are finally leaving behind the millennial boringness of brand colour palettes over the last 5 years, but also its because lots of people are not very thoughtful when it comes to how we use and choose colour in our work.

Falcinelli's book is an in-depth look at the history of colours and the reasons we associate things with them. To me it felt like someone just opened up a new section of the library, a sort of hidden backstory to the world around us. This is well worth a look if you design, feedback to design, or are just interested in the world. This is also a prime example of how the art world and the business world are more connected than either assumes.

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This is perhaps the only 'proper' innovation book to make my list this year. Its a look at how things scale, and how to build products and brands that enable it.

Which is obviously the point of creating them, but often not the focus of a lot of what gets written about the subject. This is one of those books that may solve lots of problems that you didn't know you had yet.

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This is a philosophy book about the metaverse, what is real and what isn't. That is a thoughtful account of the technology of VR and AR and its possibilities that isn't shilling for a tech platform or selling some investment prospectus.

I know? Someone has written that book. This is one to read to slowly and carefully but will change the way you look at this whole scene.

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The rise and importance of what you could call artisan culture is all the more important now, and will be in the next few years.

It has come up for us at Label Ventures as we looked at drinks brands but actually in almost every product category there are two trends coming through; the dawn of the AI/ automated/ hyper-efficient future, and its counter-trend in the handmade, the story-full and the authentic.

I've lent Grant McCracken 's new book to a few people this year and whilst it is fundamentally anthropology (always important but not famed as a genre for its fast business self-help qualities) each time the recipient has come back and said 'this was good, i've gone and changed what i'm doing now i get how big this is.'

I think this is a trend that lots of us recognise but maybe haven't thought through before.

When McKinsey Comes to Town by Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe [link]

This is written as something of a cry for the soul of the consulting industry but is, I think, better as a straight forward call-out for the shortcomings of scientific management and corporate culture more generally.

There's an emperor's new clothes element to criticism of certain recommendations made by the firm in question, but the bigger point is how easily the bureaucracy of big business can lead to people executing plans that they know are either wrong headed or immoral.

Dice Men by Ian Livingstone with Steve Jackson [link]

Games Workshop is surely one of the world's true innovators, yet it hardly gets any attention when people talk about brands, businesses and propositions worth paying attention to and learning from.

Not only does this book draw together the founding story and how it became what it is today, its also by far the most beautiful physical object in the list this year - some really lovely old archive designs and ephemera in there.

So...

That's my list for another year. What did I miss? Let me know, thats the best bit of doing the links.

If you're interested in the past lists check out: 2021 , 2020 , 2019