Graphic design

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24 blog entries

Book List of the Week

Hardcovers and Paperbacks Will Always Rule: Gail Anderson’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter March 6, 2012

Graphic designer Gail Anderson: New York
Profile Book List
Gail Anderson knows type. She’s made it the center of her much-admired work at Rolling Stone magazine and as the Creative Director of SpotCo, an agency specializing in graphic design for the theater world. With Steven Heller she’s written six popular books on type of all kinds, including New Ornamental Type and New Vintage Type. The team has a new book, New Modernist Type, coming out this fall. A recipient of the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIGA, Anderson is also an in-demand lecturer on graphic design topics. More...

Author Q&As

Author Q&A with Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Sagi Haviv: Identify

By Steve Kroeter February 8, 2012

Graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile  Book List
Graphic designer Tom Geismar: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List
Graphic designer Sagi Haviv: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List

In the first in a series of Author Q&As, Designers & Books asks graphic designers Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Sagi Haviv to talk about their new book, Identify (Print Publishing, October 2011), named a Notable Book of 2011 by Designers & Books. More...

Book List of the Week

Much More Than the Sum of Their Parts: Bob Gill’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter November 22, 2011

Graphic designer Bob Gill (New York)
Book List

On a recent late Friday afternoon, Designers & Books visited Bob Gill in his studio on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Gill, a founder of Pentagram's forerunner—Fletcher/Forbes/Gill—was seated in an Eames lounge chair next to a floor-to-ceiling wall of books. Scattered about were all the tools of the graphic design trade—of both the analog and digital variety: a Mac and trays of pencils and markers, a scanner as well as straightedges. The conversation with Gill covered his favorite books, the fact that he is not an avid reader, and comments about the many books he’s written, including his latest—Bob Gill, so far. More...

Graphic design

5 Notable Design Books of 2011: Rick Poynor

By Rick Poynor November 3, 2011

Guest blogger: Visual culture critic Rick Poynor (Design Observer, London)
Profile
We welcome guest blogger Rick Poynor—also a Designers & Books commentator—who shares his selection of notable design titles published during 2011. More...

Book List of the Week

Fleeting Notions Into Concrete Things: Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read—Ellen Lupton

By Steve Kroeter October 25, 2011

Graphic design curator, educator, and practitioner Ellen Lupton: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (New York) and Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore)
Book List
Being at the intersection, as she is, of the worlds of design, publishing, academia, and museums, Ellen Lupton has a unique perspective on the importance and power of language. In the introduction to her list of “Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read” she makes the (not intuitively obvious) claim that “reading and writing are fundamental skills for any graphic designer.” She describes writing as the process of “converting fleeting notions into concrete things”—which seems to be not a bad working definition of design itself—and asserts that those who are truly influential in graphic design are all “confident and creative writers.” More...

Book List of the Week

A Journey Into the Human Mind Like No Other: Harry Pearce’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter July 19, 2011

Graphic designer Harry Pearce: Pentagram (London)
book list

Describing the talk that he’s frequently asked to deliver—which he does from one corner of the earth to the other: in the U.K., Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the U.S.—Harry Pearce says: “It’s about being a Pentagram partner , an eternal optimist, a  failed vegetarian , a human rights activist, a  dream diary keeper , an occasional nudist , a graphic designer , and an accidentalist.” More...

Book List of the Week

Pictures Are More Direct: Chip Kidd’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 28, 2011

Graphic designer Chip Kidd: Alfred A. Knopf (New York)
book list
As a book jacket designer turned novelist, Chip Kidd is keenly attuned to the power of both the visual and the verbal. In an interview with Véronique Vienne for Designers & Books, he talks about the interplay of images, words, and ideas within the framework of his second novel, The Learners (2008), whose main character is a graphic designer working in advertising during the 1950s. In addition to his novels, Kidd, an art director at Alfred A. Knopf, has authored a number of books on comic-strip art. More...

Book List of the Week

Typomania: Erik Spiekermann’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter June 14, 2011

Graphic designer Erik Spiekermann: Edenspiekermann AG (Berlin)
book list
When we talk about the waning of print communication and the waxing of digital communication, one element of the dialogue that retains its importance on both sides of the conversation is typography. . . . Type designers who grew up on print but have successfully migrated to the digital world have had the opportunity to have an outsized impact on contemporary commerce and culture in general, as well as on design in particular. Thus it is fitting that the German Design Council recently awarded Germany’s highest design award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, to Erik Spiekermann. More...

Book List of the Week

A Candid Search for Meaning: Pierre Bernard’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 31, 2011

Graphic designer Pierre Bernard: L’Atelier de Création Graphique (Paris)
book list
Who in the design community doesn’t believe that good design makes life better? Even the cynics among us must admit to at least occasionally hoping it’s true. French graphic designer Pierre Bernard’s take on this central of all design issues might be described as optimistic, yet also realistic. “Graphic design will not turn the world into a paradise, but it may contribute to a more humane world," he says. More...

Book List of the Week

Of Covers and Bindings, Pictures and Texts: Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read—Rick Poynor’s Book List

By Steve Kroeter May 10, 2011

Graphic design critic Rick Poynor: Design Observer (London)
book list
Rick Poynor is a writer and critic specializing in design, media, and visual culture—and also founding editor of Eye and a co-founder of Design Observer. He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and also about books and graphic design in general. More...

Announcements

Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister

Now is Better

By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023

Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.

Order the book.

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

Design Emergency: Building a Better Future

By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022

Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.

Order the book.

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman

Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People

By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022

Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.

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Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser: POP

By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023

This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.

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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall

By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022

Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”

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Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller

Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)

By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023

This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.

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