Rick Poynor

Critic; Curator; Writer; Lecturer / Graphic Design / United Kingdom / Design Observer

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Rick Poynor’s Notable Books of 2012

Nonfiction, Photography

title a–z

1 book

The Dutch Photobook

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Frits Gierstberg Editor

Rik Suermondt Editor

Book design by Joost Grootens

Despite some stiff competition, this survey of the Dutch photobook is my most notable visual book of the year to date. It is one of those groundbreaking publications (certainly for non-Dutch readers) that takes a field one knows only in fragments, puts it all together, and gives it new coherence—the obvious precursor is Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s two-volume history of the photobook. The editors organize the photobooks by theme, each topic succinctly introduced—landscape, youth culture, industry, travel, the city—and give each example a page or two of pictures and a short text. Joost Grootens builds the layouts with real sympathy for the material, and rounds off the story with an elaborate visual index that shows the books on a timeline, and classifies them by photographer, designer, physical size, and size of print run. A marvelous book.

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Published: February 22, 2022

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

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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
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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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