Who can resist a book that provides a paper doll of Saul Bass?
Jam-packed, whirlwind, and charming are the three best words to describe_ A History of Graphic Design for Rainy Days_ from Gestalten Press.
I had better start by owning up to not having read Designers Don’t Read by Howe - I had seen lots of press for it but never got round to picking up a copy.
Graphic Design: A User’s Manual is a book I wish I had when I started out as a designer.
In the follow-up to his previous work, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, Adrian Shaughnessy focuses less on the nuts and bolts of the studio and is more contemplative, drawing upon his significant experience as a working designer to offer equal parts direction and discussion.
Prepare for this review to become rather meta. Gestalten’s Fully Booked: Cover Art and Design for Booksis a design book about book design also containing six essays, three apiece by Katherine Gillieson and Maria Fusco, one of which is an essay about the difficulty of producing a book on books.
Review by Patrick Holt
Because the design industry is populated not only by the well-educated, but also by the self-taught and the self-tutored-after-a-mediocre-education (I fall into the latter), it’s likely that many of us missed an opportunity to read Philip Meggs’ A History of Graphic Design (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE), now in its fourth edition, during our formative years.
