Hardcovers and Paperbacks Will Always Rule: Gail Anderson’s Book List
By Steve Kroeter March 6, 2012
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| Gail Anderson |
Graphic designer Gail Anderson: New York
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.
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| New Ornamental Type, 2010 (Thames & Hudson) |
Her list for Designers & Books includes “design books I can’t function without.” Among these are three books on record album cover art (Blue Note, In the Groove, and Alex Steinweiss: Inventor of the Modern Album Cover); John Lewis’s Printed Ephemera (also on the book lists of Seymour Chwast and Carin Goldberg), which “sets the standard”; and the American Type Founders Company’s 1923 Specimen Book and Catalogue (“A brick of a book . . . “ that will “teach you everything you need to know about classic typography and good design.”)
There’s also Make it Bigger, by Anderson’s mentor Paula Scher, about which Anderson says, “Design doesn’t get any more smarty-pants than Paula Scher. . . . I actually read Make It Bigger—meaning I didn’t just look at the pretty pictures, and scan the captions. That’s how smarty-pants it is.”
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| New Vintage Type, 2007 (Thames & Hudson) |
Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and several childhood favorites also make the list. Says Anderson in her book list introduction, “Online design research is helpful and I do love my audio books when I’m driving, but regular old hardcovers and paperbacks will always rule.”
Note: New Modernist Type by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson will be released by Thames & Hudson in fall 2012.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Forthcoming: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
Louis I. Kahn: The Nordic Latitudes
By Per Olaf Fjeld and Emily Randall Fjeld
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: October 4, 2019
A new and personal reading of the architecture, teachings, and legacy of Louis I. Kahn from Per Olaf Fjeld’s perspective as a former student. The book explores Kahn’s life and work, offering a unique take on one of the twentieth century’s most important architects. Kahn’s Nordic and European ties are emphasized in this study that also covers his early childhood in Estonia, his travels, and his relationships with other architects, including the Norwegian architect Arne Korsmo.
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Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
Teaching Graphic Design History by Steven Heller
Teaching Graphic Design History
By Steven Heller
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: June 2019
An examination of the concerted efforts, happy accidents, and key influences of the practice throughout the years, Teaching Graphic Design History is an illuminating resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the subject.
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