Produced to accompany a now legendary exhibition at the Walker Art Center in 1989 (which later traveled to London), this book stands up as a lasting contribution to the study of American graphic design. It features a series of searching critical essays by Neil Harris, Maud Lavin, Lorraine Wild, Joseph Giovannini, and others, interspersed with interviews with designers—including Saul Bass, Muriel Cooper, Paul Rand, and Bradbury Thompson—conducted by Steven Heller. Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller’s time line of American graphic design was later reprinted in their book Design Writing Research. I have returned to this valuable work of reference many times in the past 20 years.