Stiff design theory books are fine, and practical tool guidebooks have their place too, but there's something especially appealing about a design travel book you can read at an easy pace, almost like taking a stroll.

This book tells the story of Dutch design through the eyes of Choi Sung-min and Choi Sulki, the designer couple known as Sulki & Min.

Actually, this isn't a design travel book in the strict sense.

It's really an account of what the two of them saw, heard, and encountered while working there as researchers for about two years, but as a reader you still get gradually swept up in the feeling of traveling, which is exactly what makes the book so appealing.

Honestly, this book was the first time I learned that the Netherlands is considered a leading design nation.

I'd heard plenty about Swiss, French, and German design, but Dutch design was completely new territory for me.

It made me realize how much I still have to learn.

Because so much of the country sits below sea level, people say the very existence of the Netherlands is itself a kind of design.

On top of that, as a social democracy, the country has a national culture of supporting and recognizing design, and that's what earned it the reputation of a "design powerhouse" it holds today.

True to its identity as a design-focused publisher, Ahn Graphics approaches every book it puts out with a spirit of fresh experimentation.

This book's unusual structure seems to reflect exactly that.

Photos placed upside down here and there make you physically turn the book around to look at them (I tilted my head a little too, which ended up being decent neck exercise).

What I really loved was getting stories about real Dutch design and designers, the kind of stories you'd never catch from a mere tourist's point of view.

"Dutch Design" is apparently drawing attention worldwide these days.

**Dutch Design: Dutch design that is modest, practical, humble, eclectic, and humorous.

If you're studying design, I think this is a book worth reading at least once.

(Just keep in mind that most of it focuses on graphic design.)

Dutch Design Journey