Book Review: Graphic Design Visionaries.

Graphic Design Visionaries is a book by journalist and graphic art editor Caroline Roberts, it was published in June, 2015 by Laurence King, one of my favorite publishers.. The book features 75 of the world’s most famous and influential designers that broke new grounds in the field from 1885 to 1992, artists are sorted in the book via year they were born. Some of the designers featured are actually Graphic Design studios, like Pentagram, The Designers Republic, and Hipgnosis.

When I first ordered my copy I didn’t expect mush of it and wasn’t so sure if I’d like it, I ordered it with other books cause it was suggested to me more than once and totally forgot about till I received my order. And I was impressed, for one, I didn’t think it would be that big, it’s 312 pages, 20.3 x 2.5 x 29.2 cm  where each designer’s featured in 4 pages. Paper quality is amazing, the layout is clear and nice, with lots and lots of inspiration, also pictures of the actual artist is there next to their work! Something that to be honest almost all history books lack. I totally loved this book, very informative aside from being and absolute eye candy. I will include lots of high resolution pictures in this review so you’d have a better idea what it’s all about. Do I recommend it? Definitely.

30/01/16

 

It’s 9:00pm. It’s cold. I’m laying in bed. I bought this book for a history class, loving it so much, very easy read, quiet informative a very visual at the same time. I’m listening to my favorite Boards of Canada’s album for the first time in a long time. Haven’t slept much the past few days but I’m functioning perfectly. Yesterday was my birthday and I didn’t feel bad like everytime. I have just discovered Simon Scott’s solo work and I’m crazy about it, It ranges from drone to ambient electronic with some elements of shoegaze, in other words: perfection, him and Evan Caminiti are definitely my new obsession, have been listening to them repeatedly the whole month. don’t you just love it when you discover music that change you in a way? God I love it! Tim Hecker released a new album, it got leaked right after he announced it, first I wanted to download it but then decided to wait and order it so I added it to my cart with the rest of records I wanted to buy. I’m also saving up cause I need more power. It’s funny how four years ago my life was almost empty and now I’m so busy I don’t even have time to catch up with my best friend but then again who am I kidding? I have always been a loner. My favorite songs at the moment are Radiance , Forever Dilating Eye , Flood Inn , and Near Dark. I found a new site called letterboxd, it’s a bit like Goodreads but for movies, so nice and helped me sort my movie library, found so many amazing titles that should be an interesting watch, made 3 lists till now. I decided I want to watch at least one movie everyday this year. I dig movies and they are a source of inspiration, why the hell not? Favorite movies I’ve seen lately are The Lobster, Possession (which fucked me up big time and I’m still thinking about till now but it made it to my all time favorite movies) and Beyond the Black Mountain, the last made me discover Sinoia Caves, that’s one thing I love about a good movie.

Maybe I should do this every once in a while, my days in pictures, and rant for a little bit about whats going on.

It’s 9:00pm and it’s cold. But I am warm. I’m alright.

Book Review: Logo Modernism.

image on the left is of my copy when it first arrived, right is after few days

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Logo Modernism is a book by Jens Müller a German graphic designer born in 1982. He is a creative director at Optik Design studio and teaches graphic design history and editorial design. The book was published in January 2015 by Taschen.

This book is huge! It’s an A3 in size and weights about 5kg, one of the pretties books I ever laid hands on. That been said, let’s move on.

The book consists of 6 Chapters.
-Logo
-Viva Modernism!
-and then divided into sections of:

Geometric (like circular, square, lines, grid, triangle)

Effect (like duplication, rotation, split..etc)

Typographic from A to Z. Each one of them has a case study.
-Profiles (of great and influential graphic designers from 60’s to 80’s)

It’s very nicely laid-out with all of the designs being black and white so you’d focus more on the ideas instead of colors and gradients which might be distracting at times. Also the A3 dimensions makes it pretty easy and comforting for the eyes to move through the huge amount of logos.

Muller was able to gather a collection of about 6000 logos from the time period of 1940 till 1980.

I’ll probably keep visiting it every now and then so I could take it all in. I don’t wanna saturate my brains with all the amazing ideas.

It’s a must have for any artist slightly interested in logos and abstract art or patterns I’m already working on an R for my self branding project. Definitely one of the best buys I made this year. A true classic in the making.