Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Graphic Design Reader brings together key readings in this ever-changing field to provide an essential resource for students, researchers and practitioners.

Taking as its starting point an exploration of the way in which theory and practice and canons and anti-canons have operated within the discipline, the reader brings together writings by important international design critics, including Wendy Siuyi Wong, Dick Hebdige, April Greiman, and Victor Margolin.

Extracts are structured into clear thematic sections addressing history; education and the profession; type and typography; critical writing and practice; political and social change; changing visual landscapes, and graphic design futures. Each section has a contextual introduction by the editors outlining key ideas and debates, as well as an annotated guide to further reading and a comprehensive bibliography.

The Graphic Design Reader features original visual essays which provide a critical platform for understanding and interpreting graphic design practice, as well as a wealth of illustrations accompanying key historical and contemporary texts from the 1920s to the present day.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• General Introduction
• 1 Defining Graphic Design and an Emerging Canon
• 2 A Reader: Rationale and Approach
• Section I History Of Graphic Design And Graphic Design History
• Introduction
• I.1 Industry and the Birth of Graphic Design (the 19th century to 1980)
• 1 New Kind of Printing Calls for New Design
• 2 Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press
• 3 The Studio: Photomechanical Reproduction and the Changing Status of Design
• 4 Elementary School
• 5 Narrative Problems of Graphic Design History
• 6 Review: Graphic Design History
• I.2 Graphic Design Canon(s) (the 1980s to present)
• 7 Cult of the Ugly
• 8 An Interview with Ed Fella
• 9 An unbearable lightness?
• 10 Is There a Canon of Graphic Design History?
• 11 Good History Bad History, Tibor Kalman (deceased), J
• 12 Out of the Studio: Graphic Design History and Visual Studies
• I.3 Isms and Graphic Design (e.g. Modernism, Surrealism, Postmodernism, Deconstruction)
• 12 Gebrauchsgraphik as an Early Graphic Design Journal, 1924-1938
• 13 The Grid: History, Use, and Meaning
• 14 Swiss Style
• 15 Zombie Modernism
• 16 The Bottom Line on Planet One: Squaring up to The Face
• 17 A Brave New World: Understanding Deconstruction
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section II Education And The Profession
• Introduction
• II.1 Graphic Design Education
• 1 The Working Party on Typographic Teaching: Interim Report
• 2 My Way to Typography
• 3 Education and Professionalism or What's wrong with graphic design education?
• 4 Visual Essay: Future Issue
• 5 Scaffolding a Human-centred Practice in Graphic Design
• 6 What is Worth Doing in Design Research?
• II.2 Graphic Design as a Profession
• 7 Design Literacy, Discourse and Communities of Practice
• 8 Locating Graphic Design History in Canada
• 9 The importance of the Dutch football club Ajax and total football, (totaalvoetbal) to the sport of graphic design
• 10 French Graphic Design: A Contradiction in Terms?
• 11 Graphic Design: Fine Art of Social Science?
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section III Type And Typography
• Introduction
• III.1 History of Type and Typography
• 1 A Brief History of Type Historians
• 2 The Crystal Goblet An address to the British Typographers Guild at the St Bride Institute, London 1932
• 3 Experimental Typography. Whatever that means
• 4 Towards the Cause of Grunge
• 5 About the Making of The Telephone Book
• 6 Helvetica, The Film and the Face in Context
• 7 Fuse 1-20: Wreckers of Typographic Civilisation
• III.2 Dimensional, Physical, Digital and Kinetic Typography
• 8 Dimensional Typography: Words in Space
• 9 Dimensional Typography: The Unbearable Flatness of Being
• 10 The New Seduction: Moveable Type
• 11 Electronic Typography: The New Visual Language
• 12 Working the art process by typing in computer code
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section IV Graphic Design Critical Writing And Practice
• Introduction
• IV.1 Graphic Design Theory and Design Culture
• 1 Deconstruction and Graphic Design: History Meets Theory
• 2 Visual Rhetoric and Semiotics
• 3 Design Theory (Rhetoric) [final title TC]
• 4 Theories to Understand Graphic Design in Use: The Example of Posters
• 5 Shaping Belief: The Role of Audience in Visual Communication
• 6 Semiotics and Designing
• IV.2 Writing Graphic Design
• 7 What is This Thing Called Graphic Design Criticism?
• 8 Designer as Author
• 9 Fuck Content
• 10 Acrobat Reader
• 11 The March of Grimes
• IV.3 Practice and Graphic Design Criticism
• 12 Criticism and the Politics of Absence
• 13 Quietude
• 14 Inquiry as a Verb
• 15 Graphic Design on the Radio
• 16 Is Graphic Design, Not Simply Posters, Museum Worthy?
• 17 Statement of Practice: Discourse This! Designers and Alternative Critical Writing
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section V Political & Social Change
• Introduction
• V.1 Feminism & Radical Graphic Design
• 1 Some Aspects of Design from the Perspective of a Woman Designer
• 2 Non-existent Design: Women and the Creation of Type
• 3 Pussy Galore and the Buddah of the Future: Women, Graphics, etc.
• 4 Visual Essays: First Things First Manifesto (1964) and First Things First Manifesto (2000)
• 5 Visual Essay: A Manifesto for 2015
• 6 Design and Reflexivity
• 7 Scissors and Glue: Punk Fanzines and the Creation of a DIY Aesthetic
• 8 He Might Be Giant: Shepard Fairey
• V.2 Identity and World Graphic Design
• 9 From the Outside In: A Place for Indigenous Graphic Traditions in Contemporary South African Graphic Design
• 10 Searching for a black aesthetic in American graphic design
• 11 Under Construction: Graphic Design in India
• 12 Visualizing Multi-Racialism in Singapore: Graphic Design as a Tool for Ideology and Policy in Nation Building
• 13 Visual Essay: Iced Up" and 'Platinum Plus': The Development of Hip-Hop Typographic Ornaments
• 14 South African Health Campaigns Dominate the Political Landscape
• 15 Detachment and Unification: A Chinese Graphic Design History in Greater China Since 1979
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section VI Changing Visual Landscapes
• Sectional Introduction
• VI.1 Branding and the Image Makers
• 1 My Country is Not a Brand
• 2 Logos, Flags, and Escutcheons
• 3 A Certain Commitment: Art and Design at the Royal PTT
• 4 On Logophobia
• 5 It is a Very Complicated Job to Produce Something Simple
• VI.2 Information Visualisation
• 6 World Geo-Graphic Atlas
• 7 VISUAL ESSAY: Design Quarterly: Does it make sense?
• 8 Tell Them Anything but the Truth: They Will Find Their Own
• 9 The London Underground Diagram
• 10 Bubbles, Lines, and String: How Information Shapes Society
• 11 Why Abraham Lincoln Loved Infographics
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Section VII Graphic Design Futures
• Sectional Introduction
• VII.1 The Future of Print Media/the Book
• 1 The Cult Future of Books
• 2 The Signifier of Incompleteness: Editorial illustration in the New Media Age
• 3 Rethinking the Book: Navigation and Wayfinding
• 4 Writing Design - Towards a Culture of Code
• VII.2 Society and the Future of Graphic Design Practice
• 5 Social Design
• 6 Emil Ruder: A Future for Design Principles in Screen Typography
• 7 Title TC
• 8 Where are we now: 'STEM to STEAM' in Design Education
• Annotated Guide to Further Reading
• Epilogue: The Future of Graphic Design Practice
• Bibliography
• Index: Name
• Index: Subject

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

A real workhorse, and valuable to veterans and novices alike, The Graphic Design Reader is the most inclusive collection of graphic design writing to date. The editors' careful organization makes this book (the paperback in particular) enormously usable. Triggs (Royal College of Art and RMIT) and Atzmon (Eastern Michigan Univ.) selected 90 essays, then divided them into seven topical sections that concern past, current, and potential future issues. Numerous essays are familiar classics (Morris, Warde, Garland, Rand). Many became touchstones when first published (De Bretteville, Toorn, Lupton and Miller, Wong). More recent articles deal with crucial, ongoing concerns such as non-Western identities, representing data. The editors make clear that they are interested in design for the social good. Over the past 20 years, graphic designers have periodically rallied for greater self-criticality. Atzmon and Triggs do not overturn canons, but they provide a serious forum for meaningful dialogue. The 44-page bibliography bears this out. The Graphic Design Reader is an exceptional undertaking, though not without its faults. The dearth of diverse voices and lack of attention to local alternatives remind readers that insights continually emerge while a comprehensive compendium evolves over years. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; professionals. --Ann Schoenfeld, Pratt Institute