Graphic design

 

24 blog entries
Author Q&As
By Steve Kroeter April 12, 2012

Graphic designer and design writer Steven Heller
Profile    Book List
Graphic designer and design writer Véronique Vienne
Profile    Book List

Steven Heller talks about the new book he has written with Véronique Vienne, 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design (Laurence King Publishing, April 2012). More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter March 6, 2012

Graphic designer Gail Anderson: New York
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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. More...

Author Q&As
By Steve Kroeter February 8, 2012

Graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile  Book List
Graphic designer Tom Geismar: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List
Graphic designer Sagi Haviv: Chermayeff & Geismar
(New York)   Profile   Book List


In the first in a series of Author Q&As,
Designers & Books asks graphic designers Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar, and Sagi Haviv to talk about their new book, Identify (Print Publishing, October 2011), named a Notable Book of 2011 by Designers & Books. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter November 22, 2011

Graphic designer Bob Gill (New York)
Book List

On a recent late Friday afternoon, Designers & Books visited Bob Gill in his studio on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Gill, a founder of Pentagram's forerunner—Fletcher/Forbes/Gill—was seated in an Eames lounge chair next to a floor-to-ceiling wall of books. Scattered about were all the tools of the graphic design trade—of both the analog and digital variety: a Mac and trays of pencils and markers, a scanner as well as straightedges. The conversation with Gill covered his favorite books, the fact that he is not an avid reader, and comments about the many books he’s written, including his latest—Bob Gill, so far. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter October 25, 2011

Graphic design curator, educator, and practitioner Ellen Lupton: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (New York) and Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore)
Book List
Being at the intersection, as she is, of the worlds of design, publishing, academia, and museums, Ellen Lupton has a unique perspective on the importance and power of language. In the introduction to her list of “Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read” she makes the (not intuitively obvious) claim that “reading and writing are fundamental skills for any graphic designer.” She describes writing as the process of “converting fleeting notions into concrete things”—which seems to be not a bad working definition of design itself—and asserts that those who are truly influential in graphic design are all “confident and creative writers.” More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter July 19, 2011

Graphic designer Harry Pearce: Pentagram (London)
book list

Describing the talk that he’s frequently asked to deliver—which he does from one corner of the earth to the other: in the U.K., Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the U.S.—Harry Pearce says: “It’s about being a Pentagram partner
, an eternal optimist, a 
failed vegetarian
, a human rights activist, a 
dream diary keeper
, an occasional nudist
, a graphic designer
, and an accidentalist.”  More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 28, 2011

Graphic designer Chip Kidd: Alfred A. Knopf  (New York) 
book list 
As a book jacket designer turned novelist, Chip Kidd is keenly attuned to the power of both the visual and the verbal. In an interview with Véronique Vienne for Designers & Books, he talks about the interplay of images, words, and ideas within the framework of his second novel, The Learners (2008), whose main character is a graphic designer working in advertising during the 1950s. In addition to his novels, Kidd, an art director at Alfred A. Knopf, has authored a number of books on comic-strip art.  More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter June 14, 2011

Graphic designer Erik Spiekermann: Edenspiekermann AG (Berlin)
book list
   
When we talk about the waning of print communication and the waxing of digital communication, one element of the dialogue that retains its importance on both sides of the conversation is typography. . . . Type designers who grew up on print but have successfully migrated to the digital world have had the opportunity to have an outsized impact on contemporary commerce and culture in general, as well as on design in particular. Thus it is fitting that the German Design Council recently awarded Germany’s highest design award, the Lifetime Achievement Award, to Erik Spiekermann. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 31, 2011

Graphic designer Pierre Bernard: L’Atelier de Création Graphique (Paris)
book list
Who in the design community doesn’t believe that good design makes life better? Even the cynics among us must admit to at least occasionally hoping it’s true. French graphic designer Pierre Bernard’s take on this central of all design issues might be described as optimistic, yet also realistic. “Graphic design will not turn the world into a paradise, but it may contribute to a more humane world," he says. More...

Book List of the Week
By Steve Kroeter May 10, 2011

Graphic design critic Rick Poynor: Design Observer (London)
book list
Rick Poynor is a writer and critic specializing in design, media, and visual culture—and also founding editor of Eye and a co-founder of Design Observer. He answered some questions from Designers & Books about his book list and also about books and graphic design in general. More...