Graphic design

 

24 blog entries
Graphic design
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
By Steve Kroeter July 16, 2013

Graphic designer Coralie Bickford-Smith: Penguin Books UK (London)
Profile     Book List
“My book list contains the favorites that I find in my hands time and again when starting a project or feeling a bit lost,” says London-based graphic designer Coralie Bickford-Smith, whose book covers for Penguin Classics’ clothbound series recalling the age of Victorian bookbinding have won her recognition and fans worldwide. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 19, 2013

Graphic designer Peter Mendelsund: Alfred A. Knopf Books, Pantheon Books, Vertical Press (New York)
Profile     Book List
“How I became a designer is anyone’s guess, but it certainly had nothing to do with reading design books,” says Peter Mendelsund, the book designer who created 11 of the winning book covers for the “50 Books/50 Covers” competition of 2011 and whose covers for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy have been described by the Wall Street Journal as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 12, 2013

Product and graphic designer Freeman Lau: Kan & Lau Design Consultants (Hong Kong)
Profile     Book List
Design writer Zara Arshad: Design China (Beijing)
Profile
Internationally renowned product and graphic designer Freeman Lau (Lau Siu-Hong), with more than 300 awards to his name, has designed everything from posters and books to prize-winning water bottle packaging and a series of intertwining chairs and stools. He is also recognized for his work as an educator and curator, and in 2011 was a curator of the Beijing International Design Triennial. Lau’s book CMYK (2012) was just released in Hong Kong and Beijing this past December. Design China’s Zara Arshad, in an interview for Designers & Books, sat down with Freeman Lau recently to talk about reading, writing, designing, and publishing books in Hong Kong and mainland China. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter January 29, 2013

Graphic designer Massimo Pitis: Studio Pitis (Milan)
Profile     Book List
“My selection of books reflects my interests in history, sociology, design, and education,” Italian graphic designer and art director Massimo Pitis explains in the introduction to his Designers & Books book list. “What I propose here is a dive into the depths of design thinking—a sea where letters and ornaments, thoughts and words, passions and theories fluctuate constantly, producing new ideas and new words.” More...

Graphic design
By Steve Kroeter November 29, 2012

Graphic designer Abbott Miller: Pentagram (New York)
Profile     Book List
Pentagram’s Abbott Miller sent along to Designers & Books a list of 15 books “that were influential on me as a student” because “as I get older I realize that they continue to influence the way I think about art, architecture, and design.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter August 21, 2012

Graphic designer Zuzana Licko: Emigre (Berkeley, California)
Profile    Book List
Co-founder of Emigre, one of the first independent digital type foundries, and an iconic magazine of the same name, with partner and husband Rudy VanderLans (featured this June on Designers & Books), Zuzana Licko has created typefaces inspired by the experimentation and innovative thinking new Macintosh computers made possible when they were first released in the early 1980s. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter July 12, 2012

Graphic designer Ken Carbone: Carbone Smolan Agency (New York)
Profile    Book List
“Print is not dead in my life,” writes graphic designer Ken Carbone about his book list for Designers & Books. “I have shelves of books still in their shrink-wrap. I’m a certified book junkie.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 12, 2012

Graphic designer Rudy VanderLans: Emigre (Berkeley, California)
Profile    Book List
“I love it when a new technology is used to celebrate an old one,” writes graphic designer Rudy VanderLans in the introduction to the book list he recently sent along to us.

In this case he was talking about the fact that the digitally delivered Designers & Books website is very much about celebrating the medium of print. But the idea could easily be extended to VanderLans’s work as co-founder, with his wife, Zuzana Licko, of Emigre (1984–2005)—one of the most influential and controversial graphic design magazines ever, known for its experimental use of digital typeface design and layouts. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter April 24, 2012

Graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook: Barnbrook (London)
Profile   Book List
Whether it’s through his work with musician David Bowie, artist Damien Hirst, author-philosopher-linguist Noam Chomsky, or with controversial publications like Adbusters and the “First Things First 2000” design manifesto—Jonathan Barnbrook is unmistakably about activism. In fact, “activism” is one of the areas included in the description of his multifaceted design consultancy, along with graphic design, industrial design, motion graphics, and typeface design. All of these interests and passions come together in his 2007 book, Barnbook Bible (on Rick Poynor’s list of “Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read”). More...