graphic design canon, and that it is a stretch on my part to inject them
into serious design discourse. Another designer whom I greatly admire
said of the last volume that he strongly objected to seeing untutored or
naïve design—such as anonymous shooting targets and raunchy 1960 s
underground newspapers—covered in the same venue, and with the same
reverence, as highly professional work by (for example) Paul Rand, Will
Burtin, or Saul Bass. Yet what better way to examine comparative merits of
visual communication than to look seriously, and respectfully, at all forms
on the design spectrum—high or low—if they reveal something important
about the nature of what we do.
Since graphic designers draw inspiration from both professional
and unprofessional sources, there is no reason to limit this only to haute
design. I believe that common show cards (page 389 ), produced by job
printers during the 1920 s and 1930 s, are as integral to the history of this
field as the 1960 s award-winning Westmagazine. Recognized and forgotten
objects are equally valid in the course of discovery. Incidentally, the
selections in this book are not driven by any specific ideology (e.g., Modern
or Postmodern), which also accounts for the eclecticism of objects, ideas,
and individuals presented here.
Design Literacy(Second Edition) is not merely my third (and final?)
chance to correct flaws that certain critics found in the preceding volumes.
Although I respect their viewpoints and accept the notion that a less
eclectic, more thematically unified book has distinct virtues, I have elected
not to shift my perspective this time around. Rather, as the title indicates,
this continues my fascination for and inquiry into a variety of designed
things and the ideas supporting them. Incidentally, this revision is not a
hellbox (an arcane, hot, type term for a trash bin) of what was cut from the
two previous books. In fact, many things from the first two books are
nowhere to be found in this version.
To borrow Milton Glaser’s descriptive and appetizing analogy,
those readers who are looking for a full-course meal might still be hungry
after reading Design Literacy (Second Edition).Which is fine, because there
is not one book or writer that will provide all the nourishment needed to
achieve design literacy. For those who are happy with sizeable helpings of
fresh insight, please feast on this revision.Many of these essays are adapted from articles, essays, and reviews previously published in Print,
EYE, U&lc, Baseline, Step,andI.D.magazines and the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design;
others were written expressly for this volume.DL2 00 07/13/04 2:51 PM Page xiv