While graphic design does not have as long of a history as some of the other visual mediums, say sculpture or painting, it has certainly come a long way in establishing itself through the work, writings and published thoughts of the designers, typographers, artists and writers involved in its evolution.
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.
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 HyphenPress, the imprint set up by Robin Kinross; typographer, author & critic.
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.
Transforming (Tranformator) – “The process of analysing, selecting, ordering, and then making visual some information, data, ideas, implications…”
I have been waiting for the publication of The transformer: principles of making Isotype charts (Amazon) for a while now.
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.
