Review by Choice Review
This third edition of Eskilson's history of graphic design (the first and second editions, CH, Jan'08, 45-2413, CH, Aug'12, 49-6674) includes an opening chapter on the early history of writing and printing and a closing chapter on social media. The illustrations are as recent as 2018. This is probably the most lavishly illustrated and detailed history of graphic design available, and it is noteworthy for being written by an art historian. The book's strengths are its excellent production values and its comprehensiveness. Its weaknesses have to do with balancing various currents in graphic design. For instance, the early modernism of the constructivists receives a disproportionate amount of weight compared to the vastly more influential period following WW II, years in which international style transformed design into a central cultural phenomenon in the West. Those interested in the history of graphic design should also consider Philip Meggs and Alston Purvis's History of Graphic Design (CH, Oct'83, now in its 6th edition) and Patrick Cramsie's The Story of Graphic Design (CH, Oct'10, 48-0660), both of which are less expensive. That said, there is no question that Eskilson's book should find a place on the shelf. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Steven Skaggs, University of Louisville
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
WAR is hell! Yet in James Aulich's WAR POSTERS: Weapons of Mass Communication (Thames & Hudson, $40), a lush catalog for a current exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London, many of the posters produced in favor of armed conflict and in opposition to it during the 20th and early 21st centuries are so exquisitely conceived and rendered that they can be appreciated as art, not mere propaganda. For instance, there's a 1918 British "Buy War Bonds Now" poster by an anonymous designer that almost prefigures Abstract Expressionism. Another from the same war bond campaign shows a sliver of a circular British airplane insignia that is so minimalist it resembles '60s Op Art. A "war savings certificate" poster from 1918 with the title "Now, Back the Bayonets" turns otherwise menacing weapons into orange blades of grass against a psychedelic yellow field. Some posters obscured the horrific realities of war, like Ludwig Hohlwein's "Appeal for the War-Disabled" (1918), whose picture of an infirm soldier leaning on a crutch is so stylishly painted it underplays the trauma of being a casualty. The 1945 British poster "On to Japan!," by Sevek, showing a muscular figure aiming an airplane in the shape of a bow and arrow at Japan, has a beautiful Art Deco veneer that would have given the viewer a sense of pride in the inevitable bloody struggle ahead. Elegant graphic mannerisms in posters for World Wars I and II helped lull people into accepting a sanitized illusion. Most posters promoting warfare conformed to a set of codes and styles designed to persuade viewers to act on their atavistic behaviors. "For Spain, One, Great and Free" (1936-39) is rendered in a monumental style that reinforces the notion that warfare is heroic and warriors are supermen. Yet when it came to depicting the enemy, posters used demonic images to instill fear and loathing. In N. Shukov and Viktor Semenovich Klimashin's "Beat the German Beasts!" (1943) and P. Sarkisyn's "Let's Kill the Hydra!" (1941-45), the enemies are portrayed as vile creatures that meet with violent retribution from bayonet and sword. "Vietnam Zippos," by Sherry Buchanan. "War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication," by James Aulich. Above all, war demands loyalty, so a poster like David Stone Martin's "Above and Beyond the Call of Duty" (1943), a moody portrait of an African-American sailor wearing his Navy Cross, was designed to recruit troops from a segregated segment of society. Abram Games's surreal storybookish illustration for "Grow Your Own Food" (1942) encouraged British citizens to sacrifice and do their part for the war effort. Cautionary posters in factories were commonplace, and comedy was useful for grabbing attention. The German "Shame on You, Chatterbox! The Enemy Is Listening. Silence Is Your Duty" (1943) and the American "Don't Be a Sucker! Keep Your Mouth Shut" (1942-45) use similar styling and comic characters (a duck and a big-mouthed fish) to push the message home. Most of the book contains posters that were produced to support war efforts. The final chapter, titled "The Cold War and the New World Order," lumps together more recent protest images, from the Vietnam and Iraq wars, in which satire is the principal weapon. "Is This What You'd Call 'Phased Withdrawal'?" (circa 1968) shows a photograph of flag-draped coffins (today, of course, the United States government tries to keep images of dead soldiers from the public). Other examples of strident humor include Tomi Ungerer's poster "The Americans Are Coming" (1967), which features a drawing of a Vietnamese Paul Revere, and the now famous "iRaq" parody of an Apple advertisement, which shows a silhouette of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner attached to electrodes - except here the wires are those of an iPod. While it's useful to include oppositional work, this chapter feels tacked on. In fact, better integration of pro- and antiwar posters from all the periods covered (and there was graphic protest against both world wars) would have offered more useful comparisons. Other than a few sophisticated TV commercials for America's volunteer armed forces, the Iraq war to date has generated mostly protest graphics, a majority of which can be found on the street. In STREET ART AND THE WAR ON TERROR: How the World's Best Graffiti Artists Said No to the Iraq War (Rebellion/Trafalgar Square, $35), edited by Eleanor Mathieson and with text by Xavier A. Tàpies, American foreign policy is visually skewered around the globe. The primary mediums are stencil and spray paint, but stickers, decals and poster paste-ups are also common. Most of the barbs are aimed at George W. Bush - including one from Sydney, Australia, inspired by Andy Warhol's Elvis as a cowboy, with W.'s face superimposed, and another from San Francisco with the headline "Elect a Madman, You Get Madness" - but Donald Rumsfeld ("Secretary of Offense"), Dick Cheney and Tony Blair share the heat. Much of the art is anonymous and ranges from highly detailed representations to graffiti scrawls ("U.S. Army Go Back Home") on a concrete blockade in Baghdad. Most of the artists are unknown or known by noms de crayon because so few guerrilla artists sign their work. Still, some have become well known, including Robbie Conal, Shepard Fairey, Dolk and Banksy. Street art of this kind is, usually illegal and, especially in American cities, is often removed within hours or days. Yet in other countries where American policy is criticized, the duration of the display can be considerably longer, though never permanent. This book will be the only record for most of the pieces here and therefore an invaluable document. For grunts fighting the Vietnam War, statements of patriotism and protest found an outlet not on posters but on metal Zippo lighters. VIETNAM ZIPPOS (University of Chicago, $25), illustrated with objects from the collection of the artist Bradford Edwards, documents what the author, Sherry Buchanan, calls "amulets and talismans bringing the keeper invulnerability, good luck and protection against evil." Sadly, these personalized mementos also served as last testaments for many who were killed in action. Cigarette lighters with unit insignia were common during World War II, but during the Vietnam War the graphics were often those of the counterculture. In addition to displaying combat slogans, many Zippos were emblazoned with peace symbols, the Zig Zag Man rolling paper trademark, cartoon characters and "sex scenes worthy of the Kama Sutra," Buchanan writes. They were sold at PXs and custom-engraved with "slogans, mantras, poems and obscenities" at stalls in Vietnamese villages. They also became infamous when soldiers were filmed during a search-and-destroy mission using their lighters to burn down huts. An extensive published record exists for documents and relics from the Vietnam War, yet this book, well designed and photographed by Misha Anikst, offers a rare personal dimension. The mottoes on these lighters, like "When I die I will go to heaven because I spent my time in hell," provide candid insight into what these soldiers thought of the war. Marijuana was plentiful in Vietnam, which is why a fair number of Zippos had engravings of the ubiquitous Zig Zag Man (a symbol of rebellion). Although Zig Zag may have been the paper of choice for soldiers and hippies, José Lorente Cascales's ROLLING PAPER GRAPHICS (Gingko, $24.95) shows it was but one of hundreds of brands produced since the end of the 18th century. "The origins of cigarette rolling paper booklets can be traced back to a Dominican priest, Father Jaime Villanueva Estingo (Jativa, Spain, 1765 - London, 1824)," the author writes. Not all papers were used for marijuana. In Father Villanueva's day, tobacco smokers laboriously and wastefully cut sections of large sheets of paper to roll their cigarettes. He devised a more convenient method of peeling small sheets from pocket-size booklet dispensers. By the mid-1800s rolling papers were big business, and many were produced throughout the world, distinguished by unique graphic motifs. While a few of the variations in this book will be recognizable to pot connoisseurs, an overwhelming majority are unfamiliar (and no longer used). Like other small-scale commercial graphic artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (razor blade wrappers, matchbox covers), many of these were adorned with fanciful decorative typography and exotic images. This book adds another interesting subchapter to graphic design history. It's no surprise that not a single rolling paper graphic is found in Stephen J. Eskilson's GRAPHIC DESIGN: A New History (Yale University, $65). These ostensibly anonymous graphics are arcane compared with the more standard works of design that have had an impact on the larger visual culture. In their attempt to establish a field of serious graphic design scholarship, historians (and I have written a few of these design history books myself) focus on building a canon of essential works as opposed to ephemeral ones like rolling papers. "Rolling Paper Graphics," by José Lorente Cascales. "Massin," by Laetitia Wolff, top, and "Transit Maps of the World," by Mark Ovenden. Eskilson, an associate professor of art history at Eastern Illinois University, is the latest historian to produce an omnibus graphic design history. "A History of Graphic Design," by Philip B. Meggs, was published in 1983; the fourth edition was posthumously published in 2005 and is the standard textbook. "Graphic Design: A Concise History," by Richard Hollis, was published in 1993, and "Typography and Graphic Design: From Antiquity to the Present," by Roxane Jubert, came out in 2006. These four books more or less include the same fundamental information, presented with slightly different organizing principles. Each focuses on the major movements and practitioners to show how graphic design (or commercial art) both influenced and influences fine art and other forms of design. Although it's impossible for redundancy not to reign, each author brings a singular perspective. As an art historian, Eskilson looks at design from the art perspective more than the others do, which is valuable because design does indeed intersect with art movements. Yet while his 464-page book is smartly written, it fails to provide enough of a novel lens through which to view the same artifacts and ideas. One of the high points in Eskilson's book, however, is the attention paid to the "signage and visual identity" of the London transport system and to Harry C. Beck's innovative map (1931-33) of the London Underground. Long celebrated as the first example of a modern transport map, it has influenced scores of others. But to see how it really stands up, one will have to read Mark Ovenden's TRANSIT MAPS OF THE WORLD (Penguin, paper, $25). While navigating this jampacked book can be a tad confusing, the overall effect is more than impressive. Ovenden does what no other design history book has ever done: he visually chronicles the evolution of the New York subway - the world's largest - from its 1905 map, with only a few train lines, to the intricate 1948 version, which is barely legible, to the much-criticized 1972 Massimo Vignelli diagram map, which evolved into the current version. For this alone, "Transit Maps of the World" is a must-have. Oddly, there is no mention of Robert Massin (known only as Massin) in "Graphic Design: A New History." He is a major typographer and the subject of a new monograph, Laetitia Wolff's MASSIN (Phaidon, $75). Emboldened by the computer, which easily gives letters an elastic quality, today's typographers often use typefaces the way we use paint or clay, expressively modeling and contorting them to challenge meaning and convey feeling. Yet way back in 1964, Massin, a French book and book-jacket designer and a virtuoso of expressive typography, used real elastic, among other materials, to stretch typefaces. For one of his many experimental interpretive works, a "re-creation" of "La Cantatrice Chauve" ("The Bald Soprano"), the absurdist "anti-play" by Eugène Ionesco, he composed the entire dialogue and stage directions in numerous, often jarring typefaces to represent different characters in conversation. He also variously enlarged the text to approximate the timbre of their respective voices and merged it all with high-contrast photographs of the cast. Since digital technology was not available, Massin laboriously rendered by hand all of the text using adhesive-backed transfer type on strips of elastic and vellum, resulting in distortions that gave each spread its own kinetic verve. The result was so extraordinarily dynamic that it became an archetype of visual bookmaking, prefiguring the recent spate of graphic novels. Dozens of other typographical feats are presented in "Massin." While not all of his books were radically experimental, this former designer for major French book clubs enlivened the publishing industry by testing the limits of typographic composition. He also reintroduced vintage and passé wood typefaces in totally novel ways, rooted in a Dadaist spirit. Although Massin (who was born in 1925) and his typographic work have been little known over here, in the '70s his books on the history of quirky letter forms and odd compositions, notably "Letter and Image," were virtually required reading for designers. Wolff's copiously illustrated and detailed professional biography does justice to a great talent who is still designing. Massin is featured in an omnibus of a different kind, AGI: Graphic Design Since 1950 (Thames & Hudson, $65,), edited by Ben Bos and Elly Bos. In this 800-page Who's Who, samples of work by Massin and hundreds of others from around the world, including A. M. Cassandre, Saul Bass, Milton Glaser and Tibor Kalman, are reproduced with brief biographies. A.G.I. (Alliance Graphique Internationale) is an elite invitational organization of international graphic designers, founded as a community, who meet annually in different countries to share their work and aspirations - a veritable pantheon of designers. Far from being a mere membership directory, this book is an adjunct to existing histories. While it does not include critical analysis of the members' work, "AGI" offers a sampler of some of the most distinctive graphic design, typography and illustration. It serves as a record of accomplishment and will doubtless provide future scholars with a road map of who did what in the last half of the 20 th century and the early part of the 21st. "Iconic America," by Tommy Hilfiger with George Lois. "Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist," edited by Susan Earle. Another omission from "Graphic Design: A New History" is Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), an African-American painter and book-jacket designer who created a startling array of stylized images for books of the Harlem Renaissance (including "The Black Venus," by André Salmon) as well as magazine cover lettering and illustrations. Had he been involved with some of the white-dominated design organizations, he might have been better remembered in design histories. Fortunately, in AARON DOUGLAS: African American Modernist (Yale University/Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, $60), edited by Susan Earle, his stunning drawings, paintings, typography and woodcuts are reprised. Although much of his graphic work, notably a 1926 series of illustrations for Eugene O'Neill's play "The Emperor Jones," is decidedly of its time, it reveals a stylistic approach that many designers and illustrators employ today. Popular culture has produced so many images that the omnibus design histories might be forgiven for not chronicling them all. What's more, depending on who is doing the chronicling, some will be ignored on purpose. In ICONIC AMERICA: A Roller-Coaster Ride Through the Eye-Popping Panorama of American Pop Culture (Universe, $60), by Tommy Hilfiger with George Lois, more than 400 artifacts, signs, symbols, inventions and ideas - from arts and crafts to people and places - are encyclopedically chronicled and annotated. Hilfiger, the noted fashion designer, and Lois, the legendary ad man, have chosen famous corporate logos like the Prudential rock and the Nike swoosh. Also featured are the classic varsity jacket and the Hawaiian shirt, both part of America's great ephemera - and its love affair with pop. Rather than vegetating in front of the television, take a look at "Iconic America." It offers hours of fun, and part of the enjoyment comes from pondering what Hilfiger and Lois left out.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* So ubiquitous is graphic design--commercial messages combining image and text--it generates much of the texture that defines culture and daily life. To awaken greater appreciation for both the creativity and the impact of this often-discounted art form, art historian Eskilson has created a uniquely comprehensive, discerning, and vital history. The story of graphic design and its sister, typography, is intricately tied to the progress of technology. Eskilson begins, therefore, with the advent of the printing press, although graphic designers did not become established professionals until the 1920s, when mass reproduction was in full swing. Plucking sterling examples of commercial materials produced all across Europe and the U.S. as he moves forward in time, Eskilson punctuates his lively commentary with profiles of seminal designers while tracking the back-and-forth surges of influence between graphic design and such fine-art movements as art nouveau, art deco, and cubism. The more contemporary the work, the more fresh and exciting the coverage as Eskilson parses the power of the International Style as the rise of the corporation ignited the golden age of logos, then demystifies the digital era's motion graphics, interactive design, and return of the amateur with the DIY (do-it-yourself) movement. Eye-opening on many levels.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
It should be no surprise that Eskilson's study of the evolution of graphic design from Gutenberg to grunge and beyond is an oft-assigned tome for budding designers. However, one needn't be a student to appreciate Eskilson's ability to hold a narrative thread as art movements, technology, and other influences continue to broaden the scope of his topic as the book progresses. Working his way through a dense and diverse melange of media, such as pulp magazines, photography, architecture, typefaces, logos, Nazi propaganda, movie posters, and signage, Eskilson (coauthor, Frames of Reference: Art History and the World) is an enthusiastic and informative guide. The tome is liberally peppered throughout with iconic images such as Currier and Ives prints, James Flagg's I Want YOU for U.S. Army, and Shepard Fairey's Hope, featuring Barack Obama, as well as digressions on key contributors such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustav Klimt, and movements like De Stijl. Given the sheer number of topics and concepts encompassed by graphic design, Eskilson isn't able to dwell on any specific subject for too long, which may frustrate some readers. Originally published in 2007, this newly-updated edition adds over eighty new images and revised text, making this an even more essential reference for designers as well as art historians. Photos and illus. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Eskilson (art history, Eastern Illinois Univ.; coauthor, Frames of Reference: Art History and the World) focuses here on the evolution of graphic design since the 19th century as well as on what recent developments in the field of information technology mean for today's designers. In a refreshing divergence from the usual pattern of art surveys, he attends more to social trends associated with graphic design rather than limits the content to artistic styles, time frames, and biographical sketches. The result is an effective description of the political effects of design (e.g., strategies used by illustrators of war posters) and countercultural influences (e.g., drugs and graffiti) supported beautifully by 400-plus large color reproductions. Given the book's readability and attention to larger historical topics, it is recommended as the best graphic design history for public libraries. It is also recommended for academic libraries; however, Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis's Meggs' History of Graphic Design (Wiley, 2005. 4th), which offers a more complete overview of artistic styles (especially typography), would perhaps be better suited for design history curricula.-Eric Linderman, Euclid P.L., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
