Graphic Icons - November 2013 review

John Clifford

By John Clifford
Peachpit Press (August 2013)
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Reviewer: Book Board member Allison Arieff (SPUR)

Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design, by John Clifford, 2013 (Peachpit Press)

Graphic Icons is a book that probably everyone assumed already existed but didn’t. We owe a debt of gratitude to graphic designer John Clifford for making sure it does. What a labor of love: Clifford’s reverence for the greats of the profession is apparent on every gorgeous page of the book. Sure to become required reading for any graphic design student (but also ideal for the coffee table), Graphic Icons is 240 pages of pure inspiration.

The book includes most of the designers you’d expect: Lissitsky to Lustig, Lois to Landor. But despite that sense of recognition on nearly every page it’s just amazing how fresh all the work feels. In fact, there is so much terrific visual (and written) information here that my only complaint is that the book isn’t much, much longer.

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