From the category archives:

2D

Designing Type

Designing Type

Karen Cheng’s Designing Type is the answer to the needs of a multitude of type designers from all over the world. It is probably the first book ever to analyse, discuss and explain process of designing letterforms so thoroughly. This rather big (232 pages, 28x22cm) imprint is from the very beginning to the very end [...]

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Studio Culture: The Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio

Studio Culture

What the public eye sees most often is the finished design work – beautifully printed posters, books, websites, packaging, and signage. But little is known or said about the studios that labor day and night to deliver something creative and coherent, beautiful yet functional, all while earning enough money to survive. Studio Culture: The Secret [...]

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The Graphic Eye

The Doll from The Graphic Eye

Are you a designer because you’re a timid photographer? That seems unlikely. But if you are a designer, you probably carry a camera with you much of the time and have a flourishing Flickr account. You may even use them on your company’s website. But you probably don’t think of yourself as a photographer, do you? Stefan Bucher [...]

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Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars

Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars

(Click to enlarge) My initial reaction to the book Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars was disappointment. But it wasn’t because of the book itself, it was because of my own ignorance. On a previous book buying escapade I managed to track down all eight of the books in the Chronicle series on Art [...]

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Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig

Born Modern

Having only recently been exposed to the work of Alvin Lustig I was very excited to learn of the publication of the monograph Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig chronicling his life as a designer, teacher and author. I was only aware of some of his earlier experimentations with printers’ ornaments, but [...]

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Emigre 70: The Look Back Issue

Thumbnail image for Emigre 70: The Look Back Issue

In order to understand what Emigre 70: The Look Back Issue is, you need to know what it is not. This is not a “new” issue of Emigre with interviews, letters, theories and experimentations that one would expect to find in a publication that claims to be an issue of Emigre. It is not a [...]

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Thoughts of a Hangman – Wooducts by Bill Hamper aka Billy Childish

Thoughts of a Hangman

Review by Peter Polaine When you pick up Thoughts of a Hangman: Wooducts by Bill Hamper aka Billy Childish book you could be forgiven for thinking that you had come across some new German Expressionist woodcuts or imitations. They may be a bit rougher but they have the same appeal where the artist almost forgets [...]

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Interaction of Color by Josef Albers

Interaction of Color by Josef Albers

Review by Carolina de Bartolo I’ve long thought of Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color as the one and only book you’ll ever need to understand how to use color as a designer. Originally published in 1963, Yale University Press published a lovely revised and expanded edition in 2006, which is 3.25 cm (1.25 in) taller [...]

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Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?

Victore Cover

James Victore has never been one to mince words or images in his goal to communicate, and this book is no different. He starts by telling us that this book is not about graphic design, it is about ideas and opinions, more specifically, his ideas and his opinions. For better or for worse. “At a [...]

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Jost Hochuli: Detail in Typography

Detail In Typography

Or to give it it’s full title: Detail In Typography, Letters, Letter spacing, words, word spacing, lines, line spacing, columns. (Amazon UK US) Detail in Typography… is one of the more recent publications by Hyphen Press, the imprint set up by Robin Kinross; typographer, author & critic. Published for the first time in English in 2008, [...]

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