Weekly Wrap-Up & Preview: September 6
September 6, 2013
As post-Labor Day morphed into the first of the season's Fashion Weeks, we offered an early peek at Chip Kidd’s much-anticipated graphic design book for children in an interview with the designer, and welcomed our new monthly column on book cover design with a dissection of the jacket for Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body. We took a trip to Canada to explore the nation’s brand identity with Bruce Mau Design. We also featured New York Times Op-Ed writer Maureen Dowd’s witty words on a women’s closet classic, “the little black dress,” from a new book of the same name by fashion guru André Leon Talley. Next week we'll be highlighting a book list and interview with Talley and an interview with interior designer Sheila Bridges.
Weekly Wrap-Up
“It scared the hell out of me,” Kidd told John Cantwell in an interview discussing Go, among the first—if not the first—books about graphic design written expressly for kids.
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New York Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd, in her essay “The Mythic Power of the Little Black Dress,” excerpted here from Little Black Dress by André Leon Talley (2013, Rizzoli), muses on a wardrobe staple.
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Our new column on book cover design starts off with an inventively designed new book on the human body. David High’s jacket design for Hugh Aldersey-Williams’s Anatomies merges style and content, epidermis and viscera.
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As more and more countries are turning to designers and architects to reimagine their global image, Hunter Tura discusses Bruce Mau Design’s proposal to update Canada’s identity for the 21st century.
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Matali Crasset, whose work encompasses product design, interiors, architecture, and art installations, names among the books that have helped to crystallize her thinking titles ranging from a biting social critique by novelist Emile Zola (an author she says she “read and reread as a teenager”) to a book on the process and politics of organic wine-making.
More...Next Week's Preview
Fashion editor, author, and icon André Leon Talley (1948–January 18, 2022) talked to Designers & Books in 2013 about the books that inspired him, and the books he wrote, including Little Black Dress (2013, Skira/Rizzoli). His most recent book was his memoir The Chiffon Trenches (2020, Ballantine Books).
Named “America’s Best Interior Designer” by CNN and Time magazine, the designer talks about the public and personal challenges that made her who she is today.
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.
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.
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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.
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.”
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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