a word of advice from stefan sagmeister

I think Sagmeister is a genius, as does pretty much everyone in the design world. I'm certain that I've chosen the right field - definitely going to read the first book he recommends below.

Q: Do you read a lot?

A: Yes. The two books I could recommend to my students are both not graphic design books. One book was extremely helpful to me was written by Edward DeBono called Thinking Course. Edward DeBono is a philosopher from Malta, - he wrote a lot of books about thinking. And he shows many exercises about how you can improve your thinking. There are a good number of tricks in there that I use all the time that help me come up with ideas. He says our brain is an incredibly sophisticated computer which is best in thinking in repetition. It has to be that way, otherwise, if you want to pick up, - say, a business card, if the brain would be creative all the time, I would have to think: oh, hands go forward, go down, fingers, move, now lift it up. It would be too complicated. The brain, by necessity, is very good at thinking automatically. But when it comes to creative ideas, the brain also wants to think in repetition. So DeBono shows you some ways to trick the brain out of thinking in repetitions, to throw it out of its regular paths.

The other book is written by Brian Eno. He is a very important electronic musician, who had invented ambient music and produced the Talking Heads and U2.And he wrote a diary for One Year. The way he goes about making his music and thinking about music is very helpful for graphic designers.