Designers often look to the past to inform their work. In Stencil Type, design gurus Steven Heller and Louise Fili explore the variety and influence of the world s most ubiquitous typographic style, which dates to prehistoric times and has been used on a range of surfaces from street signs, buildings, and bridges to packaging and posters. This expansive sourcebook presents hundreds of international examples of stencil typography from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. The wonderful array of stencil types highlights surprising instances of artistry and ingenuity from a broad range of locations and objects from military, traffic, and transportation to home decoration, mass communication, and street art. And the survey is global, drawing on design from America, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Eastern Europe. An introduction surveys the history and applications of stencil typography, and samples of stencil type are presented in order of their geographic origin.

Playing with Graphic Style is a lively and playful approach to discovering different design styles. This engaging guide begins with an introduction to the philosophy of learning through the process of play. This series of experimental design projects will cover the distinctions between a personal and universal style, historical and contemporary style, one-of-a kind styles and how lettering, type and typography often define style. The awareness and sensitivity to type styles, forms, and type choices gained through these visual experiments will increase the designer's confidence in their personal and professional work. This book can be used in the classroom or independently, and readers can go directly to exercises that appeal to them. Don't be afraid to try something different! Playing with Graphic Style offers 50 experiments that apply the fundamental principles of graphic design in a way that is creative, fun and interactive.

This book includes bold, monumental, atmospheric, architectural letters with relief and shadow define great periods of confidence and optimism. Shadows add intrigue and spectacle to otherwise mundane words. And theyre back in style. Drawn from a particularly rich period in the history of shadow type, from the 19th to the mid-20th century, this is the first compilation of popular, rare and forgotten three-dimensional letters from Germany, France, Britain, Italy and the United States, where the best examples were produced. Presented in compact form, with examples from some 300 sources compiled by the leading historian of graphic design, this lively publication, packed full of typographic ideas for any purpose, will amuse, enchant and inspire anyone aiming to impart depth to their design.

Classic modern design never goes out of style: it is merely retired or subtly adapted to its given place and time. Having surveyed handwritten, new vintage, and new ornamental tendencies in type and lettering, graphic-design guru Steven Heller now turns his encyclopedic gaze on Modernism. New Modernist Type reveals how a graphic language of simplicity and economy has impacted contemporary design. Hundreds of examples by international designers are grouped into three thematic chapters: Old Modern (when the machine age influenced graphic design), Playful Modern (wit, humor, and transformation), and Meta Modern (typography as icon and symbol). An historical introduction places today 's tendencies in context, and the reference section features a list of designers websites.

Selected by the world's most knowledgeable and well-connected graphic design commentator, Steven Heller, this survey gets into the minds of designers who create typefaces, word-images and logos through their private sketchbooks. Arranged by designer, it reveals how nearly 120 of the world's leading designers and typographers continually strive to find new and exciting ways of communicating through letters and words, and provides fascinating insights into their work. Aimed at all those who use type, whether by hand or on screen, this revealing compendium stresses the importance of good typography at a time when reading habits are changing, and celebrates a craft that has endured for centuries.

New in the 100 Ideas that Changed... series, this book demonstrates how ideas influenced and defined graphic design, and how those ideas have manifested themselves in objects of design. The 100 entries, arranged broadly in chronological order, range from technical (overprinting, rub-on designs, split fountain); to stylistic (swashes on caps, loud typography, and white space); to objects (dust jackets, design handbooks); and, methods (paper cut-outs, pixelation). Written by one of the world's leading authorities on graphic design and lavishly illustrated, the book is both a great source of inspiration and a provocative record of some of the best examples of graphic design from the last hundred years.

From cartoons to graphic novels, from humor to superheroes, comics are the world 's most popular form of illustration. And, as in all forms of illustration, artists and designers experiment with visual ideas, image-and-word play, narrative sequencing, and stylistic flourishes through sketching. What we rarely see is the creative thinking the doodling that leads to fully formed visual ideas and stories. Comics Sketchbooks presents the private notebooks of eighty-two of the world 's most inventive, innovative, and successful artists alongside new talents and emerging illustrators. The artists have been selected by the world 's leading critic and most knowledgeable source in the field of graphic design and illustration, Steven Heller, who has had personal access to some of the most private and unseen material. Although there have been several comic-book compilations over the years, none has the visual excitement, insight, and mind-blowing creativity and fun of this one.

This revolutionary guide is not only the first to look at how typography in design creates a call to action, but it also explores type and image as language. Stop, Think, Go, Do is packed with arresting imagery from around the world that influences human behavior. Page after page, you'll find innovative messages that advocate, advise caution, educate, entertain, express, inform, play, and transform.

Design School Confidential is a richly illustrated, unprecedented anthology of over 50 of the most challenging class projects from design schools around the world. The projects range from basic typography to social responsibility. From printed matter to environmental extravaganzas, students are challenged to push the limits of form and content. How do students learn to solve design problems? How do cultural differences impact the way design is taught? What do design students want from their class assignments? What do design teachers hope to impart? The answers can be found in this impressive compendium of choice projects from the likes of the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland; Fabrica, Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, Italy; Arts Academy of Split, Croatia; School of Visual Arts, New York, United States; Berlin University of the Arts, Germany, and many more. Design School Confidential is an essential resource for teachers seeking uniquely successful projects.

This provocative survey reveals how four of the most destructive dictatorships of the 20th century — Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Russia and Communist China — used graphic design to sell their messages. Explores each regime's distinctive strategies for seducing public opinion and infiltrating people's lives, in media ranging from logos, flags, typefaces and posters to children's books and figurines Remarkable archival photographs set the disturbingly powerful graphic devices in historical context. The perceptive text analyses how these four regimes established the most effective modes of visual propaganda, which were later adopted and adapted by many other dictatorships.

The impact of more than one hundred years of aesthetics, form, and content on developments in graphic communications. This unique history of design, documenting over a century of creative brilliance, has now been brought into the twenty-first century. Showcasing the most influential designs and designers from 1900 to the present, this outstanding collection illustrates how the best ideas perpetuate themselves over time, one great concept inspiring the next. More than one hundred seminal images—one from each year—are shown alongside the works that influenced their creation and the designs that were inspired or evolved from them. Examples include work from both famous and anonymous graphic artists from Toulouse-Lautrec to Milton Glaser and Art Chantry, visually juxtaposing each example to illustrate a theme or artistic device.