Menu Design in America: A Visual and Culinary History of Graphic Styles and Design, 1850-1985 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 383652029X ISBN 13: 9783836520294

Publisher: Taschen America Llc, 2018

Synopsis

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 color, 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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

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.

Review

“Luxuriating vicariously in the pleasures of this book you can’t help but become hungry... for food of course, but also for something more: the bygone days of our country’s splendidly rich and complex graphic past.”

About this edition

• Publisher: Taschen America Llc
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 383652029X
• ISBN 13: 9783836520294
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 585
• Editor: Heimann Jim, Heller Steven, Mariani John