Modernism's timeless functionality and utilitarian beauty are constantly reinterpreted in the world of design. New Modernist Type gathers hundreds of contemporary examples showing how simplicity, clarity and homage to historical modernism are still at play in the work of today’s most exciting graphic designers.

Steven Heller, design historian and critic, and Gail Anderson, designer and educator, have made an international selection of ‘new modernist’ designs, from classical, constructivist or retro works to optical, kinetic or metaphorical creations. Heller’s highly informed commentary illuminates the historical context of these new tendencies.

With its breathtaking spectrum of modernist typographies created for today’s design briefs, New Modernist Type is an essential sourcebook and inspiration for student and professional graphic designers

Icons of Graphic Design presents a unique history of design, documenting over a century of creative brilliance.

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 preceded 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 and Milton Glaser to Peter Saville and Michel Gondry – visually juxtaposing each example to reveal a theme or artistic device.

The Objects of Youthful Desire. Playthings From the Past For the Present

Up until the 20th century, children’s play was not a subject that demanded much attention. While objects that entertained children have been present from ancient history, it was only with industrial mass production — and a developing urban middle class — that toys appeared more frequently. As playthings began to display a robust economic performance, an industry rose to provide this new market with the objects of their desire. European manufacturers dominated the toy market, with Germany, in particular, supplying the American market with the bulk of both singular and mass-produced products. World War I ended its dominance, and by the 1920s, bolstered by American ingenuity, an ever-growing consumer culture supported by the media empires of newspapers, radio, and television, American toys became ubiquitous in the consumer market.

Ranging from the simple to the complex, children were inundated with a commodity to be wished for and sold to by the millions. From frilly dolls to science sets, children were marketed to with gusto, first through magazines and comic books and later through television. Toys fell along familiar gender lines all while being developed with the unspoken subtext of stimulating developing minds and being vehicles of problem solving with educational value.

If the first part of the 20th century represented the rise of toys in America, the postwar period signaled a market unleashed by the baby boom. That one event gained traction for the toy industry and propelled it to its current state. Unforeseen was the next chapter in the industry — the advancement of the technical revolution — which would create another dimension of toy products that would captivate both children and adults as one century blended into the next.

In the world of toy production, the multimillion-dollar industry took the advertising of their product seriously, and toy manufacturers inundated customers with their latest product via trade journals. In New York City, the hub of the toy industry for most of the 20th century, annual trade shows introduced a deluge of new playthings to the buying public. Frisbees, board games, baseball mitts, Hula-Hoops, air rifles, video games, dolls, and miniature trains were all served up to generations of children, cementing forever the memories playtime.

Filled with a Santa’s sack full of surprises Toys. 100 Hundred Years of All-American Toy Ads takes us down the aisles of America’s toy store delivering the favorites and forgotten memories of toys that were hugged and hoarded, saved and disposed of, and now finally brought back in their pristine glory. Once again it’s Christmas, your birthday, and a reward for a job well-done.

The editor:

Jim Heimann is the Executive Editor for TASCHEN America. A cultural anthropologist, historian, and an avid collector, he has authored numerous titles on architecture, pop culture, and the history of Los Angeles and Hollywood, including TASCHEN’s Surfing, Los Angeles. Portrait of a City, California Crazy and the All-American Ads series.

The author:

Steven Heller, co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Design / Designer as Entrepreneur program, writes “The Daily Heller” for printmag.com and is author or editor of more than 190 books on graphic design, editorial illustration, and political art.

Mad for ads: Advertising for the Space Age Gleaned from thousands of images, this book offers the best of American print advertising in the age of the "Big Idea." From the height of American consumerism, bold and colourful campaigns paint a fascinating portrait of the 1950s and 60s, as concerns about the Cold War gave way to the carefree booze-and-cigarettes capitalism of the Mad Men era.

Digitally remastered for optimum reproduction quality, the ads burst with crisp fonts and colours, as well as a sexy sense of possibility, beguiling their audience to buy everything from guns to girdles, cars to toothpaste, air travel to home appliances. At turns startling, amusing and inspiring, this panorama of mid-century marketing is at once an evocative period piece and a showcase of design innovation and advertising wit.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

A Century’s Worth of Pleasure and Pause. Selling the most delicious vices

The quest to affirm Americans’ need for alcohol and tobacco is a tale of 100 years of advertising intended to seduce consumers to partake in these delicious vices. This catalogue of ads showcases the extensive and abundant campaigns and trends of drinking and smoking in the United States that, for better or worse, explore a vibrant chapter of advertising history.

Vices or virtues: drinking and smoking provided marketers with products to be forged into visual feasts. In this lush compendium of advertisements, we explore how depictions of these commodities spanned from the elegant to the offbeat, revealing how manufacturers prodded their customers throughout the 20th century to imbibe and inhale.

Each era’s alcohol and tobacco trends are exuberantly captured page after page, with brand images woven into American popular culture so effectively that almost anyone could identify such icons as the Marlboro Man or Spuds MacKenzie, figures so familiar they could appear in ads without the product itself. Other advertisers devised clever and subliminal approaches to selling their wares, as the wildly successful Absolut campaign confirmed. Even doctors contributed to a perverse version of propaganda, testifying that smoking could calm your nerves and soothe your throat, while hailing liquor as an elixir capable of bringing social success.

Whether you savor these visual delights, or enjoy inhaling and wallowing in forbidden pleasures, you will certainly be thrilled by this exploration of a decidedly vibrant — and sometimes controversial — chapter of advertising history.

The editor:

Jim Heimann is the Executive Editor for TASCHEN America. A cultural anthropologist, historian, and an avid collector, he has authored numerous titles on architecture, pop culture, and the history of Los Angeles and Hollywood, including TASCHEN’S Surfing, Los Angeles. Portrait of a City, and the best-selling All American Ads series.

The authors:

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author Program. For 33 years he was an art director for The New York Times, and currently writes the “Visuals” column for The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of 120 books on graphic design, illustration, and satiric art.

Allison Silver is a writer and editor based in New York City. A former contributing editor to Culture & Travel magazine, she was editor of The Los Angeles Times Sunday "Opinion" section, an editor of The New York Times "Week in Review," and a founding editor of The Washington Independent.
 

Illustration’s Finest. A global compilation of 100 must-know artists

For all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era: illustration is alive and kicking, and new tools have given the art renewed vigour and the illustrator greater stamina. Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann present a snapshot of “the new golden age of illustration,” rounding up 100 of the most talented artists around the world. We dare you to pick your favourites.

For the last ten years, Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann have traced the latest developments in illustration across the globe — and for all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era, they’re here to set the record straight.

There were extraordinary eras before mass media changed our viewing habits, back in the day when illustration was the most primary means of illuminating the word on paper, to today when we get our words and images on screens as small as a watch face. And in this environment, today’s designers and artists are holding their own brilliantly. Illustration is more free and varied than ever, and it is ubiquitous in all kinds of media from paper to screen, books, packages, clothing, cars, and restaurants.

This book celebrates the sheer quality, diversity, intensity, comedy, vivacity, and exceptionality of the work being created by illustrators right now. From veteran artists like Brad Holland, whose oblique and metaphorical paintings for the New York Times’ op-ed section revolutionized illustrative content in the 1970s, to up-and-coming stars like Robin Eisenberg, her pastel-skinned alien belles cruising in spaceships on indie-rock album covers, the 100 artists in this collection are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but they represent a compelling snapshot of the styles, techniques, and use of colour by artists across the world. We dare you to pick your favourites. Includes: an introduction and foreword by editors Julius Wiedemann and Steven Heller600 pages of brilliantly reproduced works a biography for each artist detailing their background, philosophy, motivations, and contact details an index of illustration agencies

Includes:

- an introduction and foreword by editors Julius Wiedemann and Steven Heller
- 600 pages of brilliantly reproduced works
- a biography for each artist detailing their background, philosophy, motivations, and contact details
- an index of illustration agencies

The editors:

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author Program. For 33 years he was an art director for The New York Times, and currently writes the “Visuals” column for The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of 120 books on graphic design, illustration, and satiric art.

Julius Wiedemann studied graphic design and marketing and was an art editor for newspapers and design magazines in Tokyo before joining TASCHEN in 2001. His titles include the Illustration Now! and Record Covers series, as well as the infographics collection and books about advertising and visual culture.

À La Carte. Over one hundred years of menu graphics

Appetite for art? Gastronomy meets graphics in this comprehensive survey of printed restaurant menus. Showcasing some of the best examples of this culinary graphic art, this updated edition serves not only as an extraordinary collection of paper ephemera but also as a history of restaurants and our evolving eating habits.

Until restaurants became commonplace in the late 1800s, printed menus for meals were rare commodities reserved for special occasions. As restaurants proliferated, the menu became more than just a culinary listing: it was an integral part of eating out, a clever marketing tool, and a popular keepsake.

Menu Design is an omnibus showcasing the best examples of this graphic art. Illustrated in vibrant colour, this compact volume not only gathers an extraordinary collection of paper ephemera but serves as a history of restaurants and dining out in America. Featuring both covers and interiors, the menus offer an epicurean tour and insight to more than a hundred years of dining out.

An introduction on the history of menu design by graphic design writer Steven Heller and extended captions by culinary historian John Mariani accompany each piece throughout the book. Various photographs of restaurants round out this compendium that will appeal to anyone who enjoys dining out and its graphic and gastronomic history.

The editor:

Jim Heimann is the Executive Editor for TASCHEN America. A cultural anthropologist, historian, and an avid collector, he has authored numerous titles on architecture, pop culture, and the history of Los Angeles and Hollywood, including TASCHEN’S Surfing, Los Angeles. Portrait of a City, and the best-selling All American Ads series.

The contributing authors: 

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author Program. For 33 years he was an art director for The New York Times, and currently writes the “Visuals” column for The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of 120 books on graphic design, illustration, and satiric art.

John Mariani is food and travel columnist for Esquire Magazine, wine columnist for Bloomberg International News, and author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, America Eats Out, The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, and How Italian Food Conquered the World.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Dream a Little Dream. The art of selling more than just a car

In the heyday of the automobile, marketing cars was an exacting process. Selling the public one of their major life purchases involved not only traditional advertising but also a crucial item that extolled the virtue of the cars: the brochure. Often oversize and sumptuously produced, including acetate overlays with fabric and paint swatches, brochures were only available at dealer showrooms or auto fairs — hence specimens of antique and vintage car brochures are rare collector’s items today.

Frequently overlooked in design and automotive histories, this ephemera offers a lucid mirror image of tastes, consumerism, and buying habits since the dawn of the automobile. Automobile Design Graphics presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of this mostly forgotten breed of collateral advertising. From the most obscure (Tucker, Ajax, Columbia) to the most iconic (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler), the visual history brings together over 500 reproductions from these rare and collectible customer brochures. Across eight decades, they present not only some of the finest cars, but also some of the best illustration and graphic design of the 20th century.

Ancillary examples of automotive literature, including the elaborate dealer manuals are also featured, alongside essays by automobile and cultural historian Jim Donnelly and preeminent design historian Steven Heller. Testament to a bygone era when cars were, quite simply, the stuff dreams were made of, this book is a visual and informative pleasure for car enthusiasts, designers, and pop culture aficionados alike.

Perfect Likeness. Portraiture today, from caricature to realism

The field of illustration has flourished over the last decade, with professionals working both on computers and by hand. In illustration, the single most challenging and captivating subject has been the portrait, frequently used in editorials, advertising, products, and most recently, being the subject of major exhibitions.

This book gathers together the exclusive portrait work of over 80 illustrators from all over the world, many of whom were featured in our Illustration Now! series, including Aaron Jasinski, André Carrilho, Hanoch Piven, Anita Kunz, Jody Hewgill, and Dugald Stermer. The book also includes an index of subjects and an introduction by graphic design historian Steven Heller.

About the series

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, the name TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together nearly 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisiac.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

Picture this. The biggest players in the highly competitive field of illustration

Culled from our Illustration Now! series is this selection of today’s most successful and important illustrators from around the globe. In his introduction, Steven Heller fleshes out the challenging process of narrowing down a field of 600 illustrators to a selection of the 100 most significant. The final cut, including artists such as Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Brad Holland, Mirko Ilić, Anita Kunz, and Christoph Niemann, provides a snapshot of the highly dynamic and diverse world of contemporary illustration.

Features include:

- A self-portrait by each illustrator and examples of their work
- A profile text about each illustrator by Steven Heller
- Lists of selected exhibitions and publications
- Illustrators’ quotes about his/her work

О книге 100 Illustrators

100 Illustrators – расскажет о самых известных и великих иллюстраторах Мира на сегодняшний день. Позволит окунуться в сферу их творчества, представить, как создавались популярные художественные шедевры.

Автор книги 100 Illustrators, Стивен Хеллер, в своем вступлении подчеркивает сложность выбора и сужения кандидатов от 600 лучших иллюстраторов, до 100. В список наиболее значимых вошли такие знаменитые художники, как Иштван Баньяй, Гари Бейсман, Сеймур Чваст, Пол Дэвис, Брэд Голанд, Мирко Илич, Анита Кунц и Кристоф Ниманн. Их работы как нельзя лучше передают весь высоко динамичный и разнообразный мир современной иллюстрации.

Книга 100 Illustrators от издательства Taschen, включает в себя:

• Автопортрет каждого иллюстратора и примеры их работ;
• Описание профиля каждого художника от автора, Стивена Хеллера;
• Списки избранных выставок и публикаций;
• Цитаты иллюстраторов о своей работе.

A wide-ranging compilation of Art Deco graphics from six European countries, Euro Deco assembles a wealth of alluring and sophisticated design from an extraordinary period of creative vitality and political turmoil.

An essential reference for graphic artists, designers and anyone with an interest in advertising or art history, this book assembles a wealth of original artefacts from the 1920s to the 1940s, including samples of design and illustration from posters, packaging, magazines, advertisements and many other sources.

With sections featuring more than 2,000 samples of graphic ephemera from France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands, Euro Deco offers inspiration for the designer and an engaging and original portrait of the time and place in which these works were created.

Music for the eyes. Cover art sells albums: Alex Steinweiss, inventor of the album cover

Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover as we know it, and created a new graphic art form. In 1940, as Columbia Records’ young new art director, he pitched an idea: Why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The company took a chance, and within months its record sales increased by over 800 per cent. His covers for Columbia — combining bold typography with modern, elegant illustrations — took the industry by storm and revolutionized the way records were sold.

Over three decades, Steinweiss made thousands of original artworks for classical, jazz, and popular record covers for Columbia, Decca, London, and Everest; as well as logos, labels, advertising material, even his own typeface, the Steinweiss Scrawl. He launched the golden age of album cover design and influenced generations of designers to follow. Less well known — but included here — are his posters for the U.S. Navy; packaging and label design for liquor companies; film title sequences; as well as his fine art. Includes essays by three-time Grammy Award-winning art director/designer Kevin Reagan and graphic design historian Steven Heller; Steinweiss’ personal recollections from an epic career; and extensive ephemera from the Steinweiss archive.

Record collectors and graphic designers rejoice! Previously available in a limited edition, the book is finally available in an affordable trade version.

The artist:
The father of record design is Alex Steinweiss, who in 1940, at the age of 23, single-handedly invented the album cover. He made thousands of classical, jazz, and pop covers for Columbia, London, Decca, and Everest and his modern designs graced the packaging, logos, and covers of dozens of distilleries, film studios, and magazines; earning him an AIGA Medal and the Art Directors Hall of Fame lifetime achievement award.

The authors:

Kevin Reagan is a triple Grammy Award-winning art director, also honored by the AIGA, Print, and Communication Arts. As former art director of Geffen, MCA, and Maverick, he designed packages for Madonna, Beck, Sonic Youth and many others. He lives in Los Angeles.

Steven Heller is the co-chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author Program. For 33 years he was an art director for The New York Times, and currently writes the "Visuals" column for The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of 120 books on graphic design, illustration, and satiric art.

From Ansel Adams to Piet Zwart. The Museum Ludwig's handbook of photography in the 20th century

The history of photography began nearly 200 years ago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognised as a medium in its own right. Cologne’s Museum Ludwig was the first museum of contemporary art to devote a substantial section to international photography. The L. Fritz Gruber collection, from which this book is drawn, is one of the most important in Germany and one of the most representative anywhere in the world, constituting the core of the museum’s holdings.

This book provides a fascinating insight into the collection’s rich diversity; from conceptual art to abstraction to reportage, all of the major movements and genres are represented via a vast selection of the century’s most remarkable photographs. From Ansel Adams to Piet Zwart, over 850 works are presented in alphabetical order by photographer, with descriptive texts and photographers’ biographical details, providing a comprehensive and indispensable overview of 20th-century photography.

Edited by the Museum Ludwig Cologne

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

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.

Graphic Style is a visual survey of graphic design styles through the ages. First published in 1988, it has become an essential resource for designers and students. With more than 700 illustrations, it is the only wide-ranging history of graphic design to be completely visual, and many readers treasure it for its amazing trove of images. This new edition has been brought completely up to date, with sections devoted to styles of the twenty-first century, including the widely popular "Street Art" and "Handlettering" movements. Graphic Style, a collaboration between Steven Heller, a distinguished design critic, and Seymour Chwast, a celebrated illustrator, deserves to be in every designer's, artist's, and art lover's library.