A New Program for Graphic Design

Unsurprisingly, the text itself is extremely well designed and a pleasure to read and peruse, despite being 95% b&w. This text is a “translation” of a series of all day speaking events the author gave as a compressed version of a course he teaches at Princeton. It reflects his strong sense of design and understanding of the history of design. In places it feels a bit too personal, such as a long section on Muriel Cooper and another on his revival of Donald Knuths Metafont. But, it relays an incredible wealth of focused knowledge on the history of design and some of the key design references over the past 100 years. Worth reading for the cultural and historical references alone; I’ve found so many great things to follow up on. Best of all, I believe, is "Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu" which is an incredible ~30 minute film documenting the last day of hot metal printing at the New York Times.....in 1978! The video of Paul Rand unveiling the NeXT computer logo to Steve Jobs & team was also a great find & reference.The author is not just an academic showing appreciation & understanding of other design work; he relates his involvement in three projects which show his conceptual and visual artistic acumen, including the "slow scan" analog watch, his work on the NYC Metro Card machine, and a brilliant 2D interpretation of Murani's Tetracono. His Metafont effort was also, surpringly deep and technical for a "designer" and I could relate to it as a labor of love to revive a key piece of technology that had aged out of usability.I think the book rightly concludes with an examination of the contributions of Susan Kare and the Macintosh to the now-unavoidable prominence/dominance of digital interfaces and metaphors in life and design. All-in-all great fun even for 'armchair' designers and artists like myself.

A quick, delightful read. If you're a practicing designer, ignore your incessant need for another pragmatic "How To" design book and pick this one up instead. It will shape your world view and empower your aritistic point of view in ways a book on color theory simply won't. And that, arguably, is far more important. The book contextualizes today's design "principles" and "best practices" in ways that reveal the (fascinating) ebbs and flows of history, each of which was heavily influenced and almost shaped "by design" and by artists with a point of view. Highly recommend it!

Granted, I've only just finished the first of three sections (Typography, Gestalt, Interface) but this book is joy to read, so I felt compelled to offer a review thus far. As a designer for 20-something years this is a really refreshing read and a useful way to brush up on the fundamentals of graphic design. The Typography section is a whirlwind potted tour of the subject's history mainly from a production perspective.Is this a good book for students – yes, if they're the type of student who will be inspired by the history and experiments laid out by practitioners who came before them. I would suggest it's of equal use to designers like myself too, a timely reminder as to why we do what we do, and the important of experimentation and keeping things interesting.I'm really looking forward to the final two sections!

Un fantástico libro, con un programa sobre diseño gráfico muy distinto a lo usual. Una fuente de conocimientos muy interesante y una propuesta metodológica impecable.

Great book