THE PLAYBOOK, photos by Alex S. MacLean, introduction by Susan Yelavich
The Playbook is a unique collection of photographs of America at play by Harvard-trained architect and aerial photographer Alex MacLean. Writer Susan Yelavich says, “Playbook is MacLean’s paean to a dimension of contemporary life all too often discounted as trivial or inconsequential: children play; gamblers play; slackers play; athletes play. In a society that places a premium on work, these players conduct their games on the margins, where the stakes are either the immaterial satisfactions of sandbox status or the extravagant perks of celebrity stature.

“MacLean’s photographs tell a different story, however. They are both a celebration of play and a document of its absorption into the Protestant work ethic. … MacLean doesn’t editorialize … Rather, he trains his camera with affection and acuity on the remarkable levels of invention through which we rationalize playing.”

MacLean says, “One does not need to look far to find evidence of people at play. It keeps us in touch with our minds, bodies, and spirits. My father always spoke of play’s ‘civilizing influence in human evolution,’ and it is in play that we leave some of our better marks and traces on the earth’s surface.”

Check out The Playbook to view the beauty of perfectly symmetric sports stadiums, the spaghetti-like tangles of theme parks and sunbathers on a stretch of splendid beach, all from a bird’s eye view.
$60, hardcover, 264 pages, Prestel Publishing

JOSEF MÜLLER-BROCKMANN by Kerry William Purcell
“A visual poet, a resourceful designer, and a pioneer in education—across all forms his creations spoke with the same unified harmony of line, color, and image. [Josef Müller-Brockmann] taught discipline, clarity, honesty, and integrity through example. In a profession critically short on such values, his life and work continue to personify the ideal of a committed, humane, and conscientious designer,” says the author Kerry William Purcell of the influential Swiss designer that is the subject of this volume.

Müller-Brockmann was, of course, a leading practitioner and theorist of the Swiss Style, which emphasized cleanliness, readability and objectivity. The book, Josef Müller-Brockmann, includes over 400 images culled from the designer’s personal archive. This comprehensive monograph presents Müller-Brockmann’s entire career, ranging from his most famous works to some never-beforeseen projects. His work ranged from social/civic projects such as posters for the Swiss Automobile Club and Zurich Police to commercial projects for IBM and Hermes Typewriters.

“As a young person I had no clear perception of my future— I only knew that my professional career depended on my energy, self-criticism, discipline, and a permanent desire to learn,” says Müller-Brockmann. On Müller-Brockmann, Paul Rand offered, “‘Principled’ is the word which I believe best describes my friend J. Müller-Brockmann. Simplicity is his guide in type or in talk. His is the patience of Job as teacher, taskmaster, collector, or inquirer. He is as much at home with Varése as he is with Verrochhio, with tennis as touring. He is a ‘a man of quality.’ … My thoughts concerning M.B. may perhaps best be summed up by this geometric analogy: So the circle is perfect, so is his integrity. As the square is simple, so is his work. As the triangle is strong, so are his beliefs.”
$75, hardcover, 291 pages, Phaidon Press, Inc.

ALAN FLETCHER: PICTURING AND POETING by Alan Fletcher
In September design lost one of its greats, Alan Fletcher, cofounder of Pentagram. In Fletcher’s obituary in The New York Times, Steven Heller said, “One of the powerhouses of contemporary British business and cultural graphic design, Mr. Fletcher was as well known in England as Milton Glaser is in New York, creating high profile campaigns for clients like Reuters and the Victoria and Albert Museum … (he) exhibits a signature abandon that sets him apart from many mainstream designers … for Mr. Fletcher, nothing was as important as an idea.”

Fletcher was consultant creative director to Phaidon Press and the author of Beware Wet Paint (1996) and The Art of Looking Sideways (2001). The Design Museum of London will be hosting the exhibition “Alan Fletcher: Fifty years of graphic work (and play)” through February 2007. And in February 2007, Phaidon Press will publish Picturing and Poeting, a collection of visual games, doodles, graphic objects, drawings, typographic collage and quotations by Alan Fletcher. The book presents a wealth of material from his notebooks and travel diaries about people and places, the contextual patterns of words and letters, and the charming and infuriating idiosyncrasies of the way in which we communicate with the world around us.

Picturing and Poeting is a tribute to Fletcher’s career as one of design’s great minds. As Emily King states so eloquently in the book’s introduction, “Although much of this book seems to be the work of an instant, it is, of course, the product of a lifetime.”
$39.95, hardcover, 384 pages, Phaidon Press, Inc.

ELIOT NOYES by Gordon Bruce
“Eliot Noyes was a remarkable figure in 20th-century design,” writes author Gordon Bruce. “An architect who began his career working in the office of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, Noyes went on to become the first director of the Industrial Design department at MoMA in the 1940s. From the late 1950s until his death in 1977, he was consulting director of design for IBM, Mobil Oil, Westinghouse and Cummins Engine Company and was responsible for bringing about a change in the way that these corporations, and others that followed, were to think about design and its impact on business.”

The life and times and amazing body of work by Noyes is told by Bruce, an industrial designer and consultant who worked for Eliot Noyes from the late 1960s until Noyes’ death in 1977. Bruce writes, “While Eliot was collecting information for his fact-finding report, a serendipitous event had created a new opportunity for the department—one that would not only have an enormous effect on the museum, Eliot’s reputation and other designers, but would provide a major impetus to a dull American furniture industry and advance it into the modern age. It was also a wake-up call to business in general, years later.” During this wonderful period for designers, Noyes collaborated on projects with greats like Charles and Ray Eames and their office and the architect, designer and writer George Nelson.

The book Eliot Noyes provides 240 pages packed with over 600 images from Noyes’ extensive career and life. “This is the first monograph to trace the life of this unique architect, designer and businessman who devoted a great deal of his career to encouraging large American businesses to respect and develop policies that were rich in cultural expression.”
$75, hardcover, 240 pages, Phaidon Press, Inc.

SKIN + BONES: PARALLEL PRACTICES IN FASHION AND ARCHITECTURE by Brooke Hodge, Patricia Mears and Susan Sidlauskas
A major museum exhibition devoted to the extensive and telling similarities between architecture and fashion design will be the Museum of Contemporary Art’s (in Los Angeles) major winter show this year. “Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture” will be open at MOCA Grand Avenue from November 19, 2006, through March 5, 2007. The exhibition’s accompanying catalog examines the many visual and conceptual principles that unite the two disciplines.

Skin + Bones shines a light on the parallels between the “skin”—or exterior surface—and the “bones”—or structural framework—of both clothing and buildings of the past 25 years. The works of 46 of today’s brilliant and creative fashion designers and architects are represented by a wide range of more than 300 objects, from one-of-a-kind haute couture gowns to intricate architectural models and special full-scale installations.

The exhibition and accompanying publication were more than six years in the making; curator Brook Hodge describes the origins of the project: “During the course of my research [on another exhibition devoted to the work of the avant-garde Japanese fashion house Comme des Garcons, headed by Rei Kawakubo], I was fascinated not only by visual similarities between clothing and buildings, but also by how the garments could be more aptly described using architectural terminology.

I was also impressed by Kawakubo’s desire to create a total environment for her work—one that embraced not only the clothes but also the design of retail spaces, graphics and furniture, much in the same way members of the Wiener Werkstatte or the Bauhaus strove to create a gesamtkunstwerk (synthesis of the arts). That fashion and architecture have a great deal in common may be surprising given the obvious differences between the two. Fashion can often be ephemeral and superficial, and uses soft, fluid materials; whereas architecture is considered monumental and permanent, and uses strong, rigid materials. Regardless of differences in size, scale and materials, the point of origin for both fashion and design and architecture is the human body: Both practices protect and shelter us, while providing a means to express our identities—whether personal, political, religious or cultural.”
$50, hardcover, 272 pages, Thames & Hudson, Inc.