Beauty can be learned too: five books that inspire the way Cocota sees
Borges said that libraries are a reflection of our inner universe, and Cervantes wrote, “He who reads much and travels much, sees much and knows much.” At Cocota, we are very much into books, but also into living, feeling, and filling ourselves with inspiration. But since today is World Book Day, let’s talk about books.
We believe that the person you are today is shaped by the books that have been part of your life. Some have earned their place because of what they taught you, and many others because of the way they came into your hands.
If we think about the Cocota team, we can see that some key books appeared in our earliest steps as designers, teaching us the craft and changing the way we look at things.
Others arrived later in our careers: a beautifully designed cover caught our attention in a bookshop, a mention at a conference made us look it up, or a graphic novel gave us the spark for the identity we were working on.
At a time when we are constantly bombarded with information in tiny doses, the experience of reading a book offers something difficult to match. That moment when a book truly pulls you in and everything else disappears: the noise fades, your eyes focus, your mind visualises landscapes, colours, and shapes, and all your attention narrows to being fully present in that moment.
This special feeling is one of the reasons we value books so deeply that, at Cocota, it has become a tradition to give one of them as a gift when someone joins the team. It is not just about the gesture or the desire to nurture a shared outlook, but a way of sharing something that has helped you grow and for which you remain eternally grateful.
These are some of the books that today give meaning to our library:
Beauty (Sagmeister & Walsh): A defence of beauty as a functional and measurable need. It reminds us that our work is not to create beauty, but to uncover the beauty that already exists in the world.
Extra Bold (Ellen Lupton): A book that disrupts ideas in order to question systems. It is our essential guide to inclusion: if design is not accessible to everyone, then it is simply not design.
Steal Like an Artist (Austin Kleon): A manifesto that takes the drama out of the creative process. It reminds us that inspiration is a collective conversation and that nothing comes from nothing.
Manual de tipografía (M. Mas y J.L. Martín): The art of the invisible. An intimate journey that shows us how the detail of a letter can sustain a brand’s voice and bring order to the way we see.
¿Cómo nacen los objetos? (Bruno Munari): The bible of curiosity. Munari invites us to look at the everyday with intelligence and innocence, so we never lose the ability to be surprised.
Happy World Book Day!
