Your next summer 2024 Product/UX design reading list

Throwback to middle school scholastic book fairs and long summers filled with pool parties, fire flies, and reading books on the beach.

Addie Johnson
2 min readMay 10, 2024
From the Config Conference! Another thing to add to the summer bucketlist..

When I was in grade school, I used to love book fairs and summer reading assignments. I also specifically loved getting our optional list of books to read for Summer Reading. I loved the idea of being able to read on our own and take books at our own pace. I especially loved my college design summer reading list, which sometimes included things that weren’t just books; one of my professors included listen to an entire album of specific punk bands, or watch a certain documentary. I loved the idea of continued learning on your own time in the summer. Especially when younger, those summers always felt so special to me, the idea of spending time with family, taking trips or adventures around the neighborhood, experiencing totally new things and routines and learning.

After having graduated from college, I was looking to fill this void. I began reading daily after the pandemic, 5–10 pages before bed.

Several years after college, I began to miss the transition times from spring to summer, as I no longer had that timeline tying me to the academic cadences.

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Addie Johnson

writing about the intersection of design, business, and technology // addiejohnson.com