A jumbled selection of books that during my education as a graphic designer have been influential, informative, inspirational, or just intriguing, and perhaps interesting to the next generation of graphic designers… Some of these publications can be found and purchased cheaply at bookfinder.com, especially the paperbacks. I’ve written short articles for Eye magazine about the Paulo Soleri book, Compendium for Literates and Right On!

I Seem To Be A Verb by Buckminster Fuller, designed by Quentin Fiore, 1970

Bits World by Graphic Thought Facility/Emily King, designed by GTF, 2001

Blueprint for Counter Education by Maurice Stein & Larry Miller, designed by Marshall Henrichs, 1970

Visionary Cities: The Arcology of Paolo Soleri, designed by Donald Wall, 1971

Bruno Munari, Air Made Visible by Claude Lichtenstein and Alfredo W. Haberli, designed by Atelier Lars Muller, 2000

Printed Matter by Karel Martens, designed by Karel Martens, 1996

Thames and Hudson Manual of Television Graphics by Ron Hurrell, designer Unknown 1973

Graphic Designers in the USA / 3, designed by Gan Hosoya, 1972

Typographica Number 7, ed. By Herbert Spencer, designed by Herbert Spencer, 1963

The Colophon, each signature designed by a different press, 1931

Modern Typography by Robin Kinross, designed by Robin Kinross, 1992

Best Book Designs 1993, designed by Thomas Widdershoven, 1994

Right On! By Maryl Levine and John Naisbitt, designed by David L. Burke, 1970

Sandberg, A Documentary by Ad Petersen and Pieter Brattinga, designed by Brattinga and Petersen , 1975

Alphabet and Image Number 6, designer Unknown , 1948

Tradedmarks by Peter Wildbur, designer Unknown (possibly Wildbur), 1966

Compendium For Literates by Karl Gerstner, designed by Karl Gerstner, 1974

I chose these images because they represent my interests in work that calls into question conventions of beauty. Of course those conventions are always under scrutiny and the definition is difficult to “fix,” but M/M Paris (Mathias Augustyniak, Michaël Amzalag, mmparis.com); Cyan (Daniela Haufe, Detlef Fiedler, cyan.de); (Richard) Niessen & (Esther) de Vries, niessendevries. nl; Tomato (Steve Baker, Dirk van Dooren, Karl Hyde, Richard Smith, Simon Taylor, John Warwicker, Graham Wood, Jason Kedgley, Michael Horsham, www.tomato.co.uk) and Vier5 (Marco Fiedler, Achim Reichert, vier5.de) deal with conventions as a central component of their practice. The resulting work is not so much a conscious effort to “deliver the goods” per se, but an effort to tackle the bigger issues of how to present their [respective] conception of form in a way that responses to contemporary culture.

Robert Rauschenberg: Booster, 1967. April Greiman: Design Quarterly 133, 1987.

M/M Paris: Daria I Love You (Björk), 2008.

Cyan: Singuhr–Hoergalerie Music Festival, 2008.

Cyan: Singuhr–Hoergalerie Music Festival, 2004.

Cyan: 21st Poster Biennial Warsaw, 2008.

Cyan: 25 Years of Good Friends Music, 2008.

Cyan: “Progressive Posters” for 89, 2009.

Cyan: British Council, Program brochures, 2000–2004.

Cyan: Singuhr-Hoergalerie 1996–1998 catalog, 1999.

Founded in 1992, Cyan’s practice focusses on providing for the
needs of the cultural sector and public institutions.


Niessen & de Vries: Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF), 2007.

Niessen & de Vries: Forum Typographie lecture, 2008.

The letters of the sentence “Donne au train des idées d’avance”
(“Ideas move forward on a train”) are cropped as if it were a
panorama seen through the window of a moving train.

This poster was made for the lecture Niessen & de Vries gave at
the Hochschule für Künsten Bremen about the design school
Ulm.

Tomato: Six Words, 2006.

Tomato: Idea Magazine 337, 2009.

In 2006, Wired Magazine asked 33 writers and 5 designers to
conceive of science fiction stories using a limit of 6-words. The
poster by Tomato displays 5 of those stories.

Idea Magazine 337 featured a 144-page essay on a number of
books Tomato has published including The Floating World,
Process, Tomato and visual works for Underworld.

Vier5: Centre of Contemporary Art in Bretigny, Void2, 2005 .

Vier5: Centre of Contemporary Art in Bretigny, XEvent, 2006.

Vier5: Centre of Contemporary Art in Bretigny, La Monnaie Vivante, 2006.

Vier5 conceived of and continue to design the identity and exhibition materials for the Centre of Contemporary Art in Bretigny.

“All my life I’ve kept scrapbooks, collected printed material, books, posters, pages, cards, bits and pieces…always with the intention of getting back to it someday. Frequently I do, but the material keeps piling up, way beyond anything I’ll ever need or use…here’s an opportunity to do something with some of it: post it and pass it on.” -Ed Fella

A detail from a 1930 Norman Rockwell illustration: A determined art student…could be Miss Lucy (coming up next…)

Mrs. Lucy Carrington Wertheim’s 1947 book on her 1930’s gallery “adventures” with two examples from one of her discoveries: the painter Christopher Wood with “The Yellow Horse” and “The Yellow Man” (circa 1920’s I assume, since he died in 1930)… turns out (thanks to Google) he’s a famous British artist whose work is in the Tate.

Some antique art: A 3 minute painting from the 1880’s and a book cover and title page from 1884. Double jeopardy!

Three example pages from my “Daily Archive” sheets: the first one composed of those little bits left on the walls after the poster is ripped down, the others are of the “under the radar” graphic design that surrounds us.

An Allen Hori, Richard Bates ad from 1996 and a 1990 page by David Frej, classmates at Cranbrook in the late 1980’s.

The wonderful Canadian lettering artist, Marion Banjtes sent me this several years ago…it took me a while to figure it out that it was addressed to me.

My 3 year old grand daughter made me this Holiday card. I take it those are ornaments in the front, the back is “writing”, or so she thinks…

Stay tuned for more Faculty Finds.