Interactive design and animation studio Animade share their bookshelf!

Design and animation are maybe a bit overlooked when it comes to selecting people whose bookshelves we’d like to share with you. With that in mind this week’s collection comes from the very lovely folks at interactive design and animation studio Animade. They recently incorporated Hover Studio into their midst too, making them collectively one of our favourite groups of creative brains in a five mile radius. Their bookshelf has a serious digital and animation lean, so budding animators and interactive designers, gather round to find out the tomes that’ll yield the secrets of your trade.

Richard Williams: The Animator’s Survival Kit

The Animator’s Survival Kit is the first thing any budding animator should read. It’s the ultimate guide to all the fundamentals of the trade, with clear step-by-step guides on how to animate everything from a woman running in a silk nightie to a mouse looking slightly perturbed. None of our animation team would be where they are without this book!

Amid Amidi: Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation

We wouldn’t go so far as to say we have a house style in our animation department, but we do have a bit of a soft spot for 1950s illustration. Cartoon Modern is a really lovely compendium of sketches, stills and snippets from the era in which modern design met cartoons. Our modest little collection just wouldn’t be complete without this.

Gary Penn and Darren Wall: Sensible Software 1986-1999

Back when Animade was just a few blokes rattling around in a Shoreditch studio, we were pretty keen on a little game called Sensible Soccer. Produced by Sensible Software – one of the most successful software houses of the late 80s and early 90s – we like to pay homage to its 8-bit brilliance by keeping this gem of a companion guide on our bookshelf.

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby: Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming

As a company that produces both interactive design and animation, we always enjoy exploring the potential for creative crossovers. So when we’re looking for brain-stretching inspiration, we’ll reach out for this manifesto of alternate design futures, which also features work by our very own James Chambers.

Andrew Blum: Tubes: Behind the Scenes at the Internet

This book is for everyone that has ever wondered what the internet actually is (which is everyone, right?) It uncovers the physical realities that underpin our digital experiences, in suitably tangible form. As a digitally-focused studio our library is a bit on the scanty side, but this little hardback is a great addition.