2013 Gift Guide: New & Recent Books
If you’re looking for holiday gift ideas, here are a few suggestions. We’ve compiled our favorite books from the past year into one giant list. Included are titles focused on editorial design, typography, identity work and brainstorming.
A Map of the World: The World According to Illustrators and Storytellers
By Antonis Antoniou, R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, H. Hellige / Published by Gestalten
224 pages / 9.6″x13″
A Map of the World is a compelling collection of work by a new generation of original and sought-after designers, illustrators, and mapmakers. This work showcases specific regions, characterizes local scenes, generates moods, and tells stories beyond sheer navigation. From accurate and surprisingly detailed representations to personal, naïve, and modernistic interpretations, the featured projects from around the world range from maps and atlases inspired by classic forms to cartographic experiments and editorial illustrations.
Available at Amazon, Gestalten and your local book shop.
Kern and Burn: Conversations With Design Entrepreneurs
By Tim Hoover and Jessica Karle Heltzel
Kern and Burn: Conversations With Design Entrepreneurs is a beautiful two-color book that features candid conversations with 30 leading designers who have founded startups, channeled personal passions into self-made careers and taken risks to do what they love.
Available at www.kernandburnbook.com
Gerald Cinamon: Graphic Design
Designed by SEA
132 Pages / 170×220 mm
Gerald Cinamon is an American designer who, at an early age, moved to the UK where he would eventually become the chief designer for all paperback typography at Penguin. Heavily influenced by Swiss design, he created book jackets and posters that were bold and iconic – something unique and forward-thinking for book publishing in the 1960s.
Available here.
A Logo for London
By David Lawrence / Published by Laurence King
176 pages / 9.9″x8.7″
The London Transport bar and circle – also known as the bulls-eye or roundel – is an icon of commercial design. Over the last century it has come to represent not only London’s transport network but also the city itself. This book charts the history and development of the symbol from the early 20th century to the present day, and explores its use across the company’s many activities, as well as its wide-ranging cultural influence.
Available at Amazon, Laurence King and your local book shop.
FHK: The Complete Designer
By Adrian Shaughnessy / Published by Unit Editions
540 Pages
In the first comprehensive monograph of FHK Henrion, Adrian Shaugnessy highlights the work of this highly underrated designer. Originally trained in textiles, Henrion would later go on to become a skilled poster artist, a noted design educator and quite possibly the father of modern corporate identity in Europe.
Available at Unit Editions
The Modern Magazine: Visual Journalism in the Digital Era
By Jeremy Leslie / Published by Laurence King
240 pages / 11″x8″
The last ten years of magazine publishing have been a period of rapid innovation, providing a vital record of the era’s diverse visual trends. The Modern Magazine features the best editorial design, looking in particular at how magazines have adapted to respond to digital media.
Available at Amazon, Laurence King or your local book shop.
30 Years of Swiss Typographic Discourse in the Typografische Monatsblatter
Edited by École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL), Louise Paradis with Roland Früh and François Rappo
276 pages / English
30 Years of Swiss Typographic Discourse in the Typografische Monatsblätterexamines the years 1960–90, that correspond to a period of transition in which many factors such as technology, socio-political contexts and aesthetic ideologies profoundly affected and transformed the fields of typography and graphic design. The book includes a large number of works from well -known and lesser -known designers such as Emil Ruder, Helmut Schmid, Wolfgang Weingart, Hans-Rudolf Lutz, Jost Hochuli and many others.
Available at Amazon, Lars Muller Publishers and your local shop.
The Art of Getting Started
By Lee Crutchey / Published by Perigree
160 Pages / English
The Art of Getting Started is a hands-on guide that offers engaging and empowering challenges and activities to get over those artistic blocks and jumpstart your creativity. Whether it’s perfectionism, procrastination, or plain old fear that’s holding you back, get ready to get inspired.
Available at Amazon, Penguin Books and your local book shop.
Designing News: Changing the World of Editorial Design and Information Graphics
By Francesco Franchi / Published by Gestalten
240 Pages / 12″x7.6″ / English
In Designing News, award-winning editorial and infographics designer Francesco Franchi conveys his vision for the future of the news and media industries. He evaluates the fundamental changes that are taking place in our digital age in terms of consumer expectations and the way media is being used. The book then outlines the challenges that result and proposes strategies for traditional publishing houses, broadcasting companies, journalists, and designers to address them.
Available at Amazon, Gestalten and your local book shop.
Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space
By Dominic Walliman & Ben Newman / Published by Flying Eye Books
64 Pages / 11.5″ x 11.4″ / English
Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space explores topics such as gravity, extraterrestrial life, time, and many other fascinating subjects that will take you and your children on a journey to the very frontiers of space!
Available at Amazon, Flying Eye Books and your local book shop.
Shadow Type: Classic Three-Dimensional Lettering
By Steven Heller and Louise Fili / Published by Princeton Architectural Press
352 Pages / 6.75″x9.7″
Introduced in metal type as early as 1815, shadow typefaces were a form of early experimentation among type founders. In the late nineteenth century, the form was adopted in wood type for use in posters and has been embraced ever since by designers looking for ways to communicate a sense of monumentality, a feeling of confidence, or a simple feeling of optimism. Shadow Type presents a broad spectrum of examples: advertising, shop signs, billboards, posters, and type-specimen books featuring the most popular, rare, and (nearly) forgotten dimensional letters from Europe and the United States.
Available at Amazon, PA Press and your local book shop.
Graphic Autobiography
By Italo Lupi
376 Pages / Text in English and Italian
Graphic autobiography by Italo Lupi is a complex, comprehensive book on the work of the architect and master of graphics, images and design who, over the course of his career, worked with some of the biggest names in publishing, fashion, design and architecture.
Available at Edizioni Corraini
1946, 1947, 1948 The Missing Years of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books
Edited by Roland Früh & Corina Neuenschwander
168 Pages / 9″x12″ / English, French, Italian & german
Available at Amazon, Ram Publications and your local book shop
Irma Boom: The Architecture of the Book
Published by Lecturis
800 Pages / English
Irma Boom has become one of the most widely renowned and laureated book designers in the world today. Her often ingenious solutions to individual book productions have gained her international fame and her work is now collected by many leading museums such as the MoMa in New York. Besides book designs she also creates corporate identities, postage stamps and posters. The Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam Library honoured Irma Boom with a major retrospective exhibition of her work, now traveling to Paris. To accompany this exhibition she produced an exceptional catalogue; this miniature book contains a complete overview of her work, now re-printed in a slightly bigger version and with more pages.
Available at Amazon and your local book shop.
Stefan Kanchev: Logo Book
By Magdalina Stancheva
208 Pages
From Magdalina Stancheva comes a book on the father of Bulgarian graphic design, Stefan Kanchev. Featured are hundred of sketches, photos and logos from a master craftsman whose work adorned the largest and well-known institutions in Southeastern Europe.
Available at Reforma
Josef Muller-Brockmann: Poster Collection 25
Edited by the Museum of Design Zurich
96 Pages / Text in English and German
This book presents selected posters by Müller-Brockmann and places them in the context of their own time while also examining the validity of his solutions from today’s point of view.
Available at Amazon, Lars Muller, and your local bookshop.
Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, we only recommend products or services we use personally and believe will add value to our readers.
Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design
By John Clifford / Published by Peachpit Press
240 Pages / 6.9″x9″ / English
In this fun, fast-paced introduction to the most iconic designers of our time, author John Clifford takes you on a visual history tour that’s packed with the posters, ads, logos, typefaces, covers, and multimedia work that have made these designers great. You’ll find examples of landmark work by such industry luminaries as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, A.M. Cassandre, Alvin Lustig, Cipe Pineles, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Wim Crouwel, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Paula Scher, and more.
Available at Amazon, Pearson and your local book shop.
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