Graphic design

 

24 blog entries
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 10, 2011

Graphic designer Angus Hyland: Pentagram (London)
book list
Angus Hyland is a partner in Pentagram’s London office and also consultant creative director to Laurence King Publishing. He agreed to answer some questions from us about books—those on his list (which he describes as “divided in half by the needs of work and pleasure”), those he’s written, and those he’s about to read. 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 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 22, 2011

If The Divine Comedy isn’t on Seymour Chwast’s book list, it isn’t because he’s unfamiliar with it. In keeping with his stated interest in “visual language referencing culture and literature,” Chwast—the founder of the legendary Push Pin Studios,* along with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel—is the latest in a long line of noted artists to have provided a personal interpretation of Dante’s 14th-century epic poem 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...

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...

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 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 February 8, 2011

In the introduction to his book The Vignelli Canon, graphic designer Massimo Vignelli writes: “Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.” You can see this passion for knowledge in the book list Mr. Vignelli has submitted to Designers & Books. More...