Artists - Biography, Graphic Design - History & Criticism, Graphic Design - Commercial Art

Graphic Design History

Name: Graphic Design History
Author: Georgette Ballance
ISBN: 9781581150940

by Georgette Ballance (Editor), Steven Heller

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Overview

In this groundbreaking anthology, nearly 30 legendary writers explore and characterize the unique developments, notable people, and memorable events that shaped the world of graphic design. Taken in many cases from hard-to-find sources, these essays provide a unique scope and array of provocative viewpoints that are not found anywhere else. Readers will be taken on a fascinating journey through the trends that shaped the industry for the past 100-plus years, written by the people who helped define it.

Synopsis

Covering the history of the industry from its birth at the turn of the twentieth century to its place in the new millennium, Graphic Design History is the only reference that assembles long-lost essays defining the history and spirit of the graphic designer into one fascinating resource.

In this groundbreaking anthology, nearly 30 legendary writers explore and characterize the unique developments, notable people, and memorable events that shaped the world of graphic design. Taken in many cases from hard-to-find sources, these essays provide a unique scope and array of provocative viewpoints that are not found anywhere else. Readers will be taken on a fascinating journey through the trends that shaped the industry for the past 100-plus years, written by the people who helped define it.

Photography in New York

"Avoiding the pedantic and the jargonized, the editors have pulled together from the pages of design magazines a selection of some forty eminently readable short essays on key designers, publications, and issues."

About the Author, Georgette Ballance

Steven Heller is co-chair of the MFA Design: Designer as Author+Entrepreneur program at New York's School of Visual Arts. He is the author, editor and co-editor of more than one hundred books on design and popular culture.

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Editorials

Photography in New York

Library Journal

In its relatively short history, graphic design has incessantly suffered problems of identity: Is it art or craft, science or communication? While the question may be unanswerable, this collection of previously published essays by some of the leading writers and historians in graphic design helps to define the historic role of graphic design in our culture. While not comprehensive (little attention is given to the role of the illustrator, for instance), the essays nevertheless span an impressive range of multinational topics that examine both the theory and the practice of graphic design. Special attention is lavished on the pioneers and groundbreaking designers who paved the way for modern graphic design. Editors Heller (art director of the New York Times Book Review) and Ballance (graphic design history, Cooper Union, New York) contribute essays, as do Victor Margolin, Ellen Lupton, and others. A worthy accompaniment to Philip B. Meggs's A History of Graphic Design (Wiley, 1998), a single-author volume that discusses design in a chronological context, this collection is recommended for academic libraries, particularly those that support graphic arts programs. Kraig Binkowski, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Heller, a senior art director at the , argues in his introduction that familiarity with the roots of design is necessary to avoid reinvention and that "although graphic design history is routinely inserted as an afterthought or foot note in some histories of art and culture, it is a significant component of mass communication, from producing advertising to defining zeitgeist." He and co-editor Ballance (Cooper Union; the U. of Miami) have collected essays, originally published in a variety of design periodicals, into a reader providing insight into particular works while establishing the works' significance in the larger world of design and cultural environment. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)