WHAT IS GRAPHIC DESIGN FOR? by Alice Twemlow
STEP contributor Alice Twemlow just comes right out with it and poses this interesting question in her newly released book—an ambitious task, to say the least. Beginning with an outright list of the roles of graphic design, Twemlow puts to rest any fears that this profession is a useless one: “It’s for selling things and ideas to make money or to further political agendas. But then you realize it’s also for critiquing such behaviors. It’s for making things clear—saving lives even—but it’s also for enriching our everyday lives through the addition of layers of complexity, nuance, and sublety. It’s for helping people find their way and to comprehend data, but it’s also for helping them to get lost in new ideas, fantastical narratives or landscapes, and to question and contest what information is presented. Graphic design is enmeshed within all aspects of social life. From the signs that tell car drivers to stop at intersections and the nutrition label that clearly shows a consumer how much cholesterol is contained in a piece of food to the title sequence that graphically encapsulates the atmosphere and themes of a movie to speed the viewers’ suspension of belief—it is the sheer diversity and pervasiveness of graphic design’s products and outcomes—as well as their inherent contradictions—that resists their being corralled into a list for analysis.”

Twemlow examines all types of graphic design specialties: local trends in graphic design from around the world, interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts, autonomous design (i.e., the designer as his own client), propaganda/protest, sustainable design, hands-on techniques (like letterpress, handwriting, and other ornamental flairs), audience participation/interactive design, and more. Appropriate and relevant images accompany each chapter along with the author’s thoughtful explanations of the projects and design categories they fall into rounding out the sections.

Also scattered throughout the book are answers from many design pros to the question the book poses. “… is to make you LOOK,” notes James Victore in a simple illustration involving an arrow, an asterisk, and a ton of white space. Deborah Adler (of the Target prescription bottle fame) responds, “For the designer, it’s an endless process of exploring, learning, and working, which forms a vehicle to communicate. For the community, graphic design makes it easier for people to understand information. It is purposeful and has intention. It also has the possibility to connect people.” Or do you relate more to Ed Fella’s answer? “To make sugar-free candy for that eye which is in the economy of the beholder.” More inspiring, understandable, or just plain odd quotes are waiting for you inside the book.
$35, hardcover, 256 pages, RotoVision

TALENT IS NOT ENOUGH: BUSINESS SECRETS FOR DESIGNERS by Shel Perkins
Written by regular STEP contributor Shel Perkins, Talent Is Not Enough is a long-awaited treatise on the daily business practices that take place in the designbusiness world. Packed with information on everything from how to get started to how to stay afloat, this book delves deep into the subjects design student prospects and design stars need to know more about. Perkins writes, “In the working world, it has been traditional for designers to acquire business skills the hard way— by making mistakes. Many new design firms go out of business after just a few years, not because anything’s wrong with the quality of creative work being produced, but because of inadequate business practices.”

As comprehensive as it gets, Talent Is Not Enough does more than help potential design students make the big decision of whether or not to bother with a design degree. “Every year, thousands of hopefuls seek to enter the design profession without quite knowing what it’s all about, and without having a clear understanding of how a design career is different from that of, say, a fine artist or an illustrator. If you’re getting ready to write a big tuition check to enter a design degree program, or if you’ve just graduated and are wondering what to expect in the working world, read on!” But Perkins also helps professionals who’ve made that choice and are unsure of difficult business matters like freelance negotiations, small business ownership, legal issues (from intellectual property rights to defamation and rights of privacy), growing pains associated with cultivating a large firm, and managerial struggles for in-house design departments. “In addition to producing high-quality creative work, inhouse design managers face many political and operational challenges,” Perkins explains. “Chief among these is the need to understand the evolving needs of the larger organization and the optimal mix of internal and external resources required to meet those needs.” Talent Is Not Enough is not only filled with practical business advice for this industry, it delves deeper into the issues and offers necessary and helpful steps any type of designer facing any number of struggles can use to succeed.
$29.99, softcover, 392 pages, New Riders, an imprint of Peachpit

SOLID GOLD: 40 YEARS OF AWARD-WINNING MAGAZINE DESIGN FROM THE SOCIETY OF PUBLICATION DESIGNERS by Tom Bentkowski et al (eds.)
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its annual publication design competition, the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) assembled “gold medal winners, magazine of the year winners, and lifetime achievement honorees from these years in one volume,” as noted in the editors’ letter. An introduction from the editors looks back at the changes in the art director’s role and vocabulary (long-dead terms like Lucigraph, Cello-Tak, Keyline, Rubylith, Cromalin, Tabouret), ending with a look to the future of print media: “It would be foolish to dare to predict the role of the magazine 40 years hence. If history is a guide, some of today’s best-loved and most successful titles will disappear. Knowledge and information will be transmitted, not in ways we haven’t yet perfected, but in ways we haven’t yet imagined.” The body of the book begins with the Herb Lubalin Awards for lifetime achievement, including notables like Cipe Pineles Burton, Milton Glaser, Ruth Ansel, and George Lois. The Magazine of the Year Awards section includes not only spreads from the exceptional publications but interviews with key players (creative/art directors), providing insight alongside the history and chronology of winners. The spreads of the winning publications are outstanding—colorful, edgy, memorable, and well-deserving of this highest honor for publication designers.
$55, hardcover, 415 pages, Rockport Publishers

COLLAGE: THE MAKING OF MODERN ART by Brandon Taylor
Art history professor at the University of Southampton, Brandon Taylor explores, presents, and discusses Cubist, Dadaist, and surrealist collage as well as offshoots such as assemblage, montage, photomontage, and decollage in Collage: The Making of Modern Art. He examines the experiments of the Russian constructivists; the political satires of interwar Germany; the raw, aggressive styles of the U.S. in the ’50s; the pop aesthetic of the ’60s; and the synthesis of collage and today’s digital world. The story of collage begins “Early 1908,” explains the author in his introduction. “The 26-year-old Pablo Picasso takes a brown cardboard sheet, perhaps the side of a packing box, bearing a paper label from the luxurious Magasins du Louvre department store in Paris. Turning the sheet upside down, he paints over the label in white gouache, re-emphasizing its white, rectangular form. Upon this new rectangle, approximately 10 centimeters high by 20 across, he draws in black ink a sketch of a figure, seemingly a woman, bending over the side of a boat—maybe fishing or filling a bucket of water. … Finally, the words ‘Au Louvre, Paris’ are visible upside down at the base of the inner rectangle. What is implied? A ‘found’ scrap of cardboard destined for the Musee du Louvre? Picasso showing off his visual memory? A commercial label ‘creating’ a work of art? … While not strictly a collage (Picasso did not, after all, paste the label on) this modest work contains the germ of an idea that was to flourish some four years later, in the formation and elaboration of the influential style we know today as Cubism.” Taylor continues through the evolution of collage and the power and messages of key works, completing this historical collage with digital impact and the future of the medium.
$34.95, softcover, 224 pages, Thames & Hudson