MIXING MESSAGES: CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC DESIGN IN NORTH AMERICA - Softcover

LUPTON ELLEN

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0500279233 ISBN 13: 9780500279236

Publisher: THAMES HUDSON, 1999

Synopsis

New technologies, developments in communication and interactive media, the emergence of distinct cultural and vernacular styles and the increasing prominence of minority groups and women in the visual arts have all given rise to an exhilirating and diverse culture of styles and images, media and messages, makers and users of information. This work explores the themes of aesthetics, "mixing" and technology. It opens with a description of the cultural and historical contexts of the period from 1980 to the present, including the significant advances in the media industries. The central chapters discuss typography and the creative use of letterforms; corporate identity in the expansive 1980s; the proliferation of new and avant-garde forms of publishing in the age of the desktop; and the role of theory, research and education in graphic design.

About this title

About the Author:

Ellen Lupton is one of America's preeminent design educators. Her books include Skin , Inside Design Now , and Mixing Messages , among others. She is currently director of the design program at Maryland Institute of Art and Design.

From Library Journal:

Every library contains myriad books documenting the impact of technology in the emerging information age and the parallel evolution of a media-saturated culture over the last two decades. But even as pundits so often discuss the increasing centrality of image and form in our world, too few works exist that either document the recent changes in the field of design or analyze the ubiquity of visual expression. Integrating both these goals successfully, as this catalog to an exhibition at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum does, is a feat worthy of attention. Lupton, curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt and author of Design Writing Research (Kiosk, 1996), one of the most incisive and far-ranging works on graphic design in recent years, is uniquely qualified to bring these issues to a larger public. Individual chapters look at broad developments in design culture and trends in visual expression in public space, typography, corporate identity, and publishing. Innumerable examples range from billboards and book jackets to palm cards for clubs and fanzines. Lupton's trenchant text makes this more than just a best-of collection, however, giving readers a comprehensive context for understanding designers' hidden meanings. For all collections.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: THAMES HUDSON
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0500279233
• ISBN 13: 9780500279236
• Binding: Paperback