This book is very informative with absolutely beautiful, clear, accurately-colored photographs of graphic design works. Very helpful for anyone interested in modern Japanese art.

Newsletters are no longer recognizable as the inexpensively printed corporate mutations between form letter and newspaper that were mailed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nowadays, with no holds barred newsletter layouts, "MIX Matters" appears in notepad style, "The National Design Museum" publishes in book size, and "Rewards" has the full-color look of food and travel magazines. But image, paper and text should still balance into a distinctively classical, post modern or new wave format that is comfortably short, economical and print-efficient with the hallmark specialized news bits and identifiable logo.

Steven Heller also says that good newsletters are the creations of graphic designers in the post World War II tradition of Lester Beall, Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar, and Paul Rand. Emphasizing that point, the author has the many striking examples in NEWSLETTERS NOW indexed in the closing pages by art designer and director, client, design firm, illustrator, and photographer. My favorite newsletter example is in fact "Alternatives," a two-color tabloid for which the full-time designer creates a different design with each issue.

The samples are good illustrations of what you can learn from Thomas Bivins and William E. Ryan's HOW TO PRODUCE CREATIVE PUBLICATIONS and Allen Hurlburt's THE GRID. They also work well with Chuck Green's THE DESKTOP PUBLISHER'S IDEA BOOK and Rita and Roberta Street's CREATIVE NEWSLETTERS & ANNUAL REPORTS. And it also is interesting to compare them with THE BEST OF NEWSPAPER DESIGN and Harold Darling's FROM MOTHER GOOSE TO DR SEUSS: CHILDREN'S BOOK COVERS 1860-1960.

This title is one of the better Abbeville 'Recollectable' series. Designed like a school book, the cover is a slate, the title spread a desk with the name carved in it, the credits and contents spread are printed on an open ring-binder, with a Bazooka gum wrapper included near the bottom of the page.

The rest of the nicely designed pages are a mixture of collage and still-life photograpy. The authors have dug up hundreds of items from the past (mostly thirties to sixties) starting with very early Primers and going through the school grades and activities to the all-important Prom Night. Oh and don't forget the spread of film posters featuring 'Blackboard Jungle', 'Junior Prom', 'Campus Honeymoon' etc.

If you were in school any time from 1930 onwards this excellent book will be pure nostalgia.

Now you can put Mary Ann's pigtail in the inkwell!

What a pleasure it is to experience the work of an author who has total command over his material. In a slender 160 pages, the author explains -- in both words and pictures -- the mythology, anthropology, abuse, and endurance of this fascinating and lurid symbol. This is one of the most interesting books on fascist regalia written in recent years.

This is a fantastic compilation of American adults' images of teenagers in those so-pure 1930s, '40s, and '50s showing (in my view) what a warped perspective grownups display toward adolescents. This book should be a text in modern film and sociology classes, where the first exercise can be: "find the Latino" and "find the African American." More than dry treatises, the visuals in this book show that America's so-called adults in this century have maintained an irrational terror of teenagers that speaks to the awful, anti-youth climate of the '90s as much as the latest newspaper headline-lie. Highly recommended.

Steven Heller puts the "Good Graphics Seal of Approval" on any graphic design book, in my opinion. The essays in "Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typography" is no exception. Together with Philip B. Meggs, Heller pulls together over fifty essays on the history, aesthetics and practice of type design and typography. You'll find essays in this anthology penned by the likes of Goudy, Zapf, Rand, Ogilvy, and other huge names in the arena of graphic design. This is just another Heller book to have to back up the rest of your everyday knowledge. After all, if you know more than the next guy, you'll get the job. My only complaint is that - for such an excellent book on typography - the typeface in the body copy is smaller than the norm. If you're over 40, pull out the reading glasses.

a great little book for inspiration for design and art students
with much bigger ideas - a must for every graphic design and art student! - at the price, a real investment.

WOW! What a book! Steve's book, "When Cupid's Arrow", is a real life solution to most relationship problems. In addition it has several specific question, tools, techniques, and guidelines that we can all use to improve our relationships. And we dont need a "decoder ring" with the "invicible ink reader glasses" to succeed in applying the principles of this great book. Steve takes his 26+ years of experience in helping people overcome lifes most common challanges, and shares his great insights in a manner that is easy to read, simple to understand, and EXTREMLY POWERFUL. I am very happy with the positive impact this book has had on my marriage. I have also seen what kind of an impact his book has had on those friends and family members with whom I have shared this book. I have read a lot of books on self help, and I have recomended just as many. But, never have I seen a book make such an impact. I am definately a Steven Heller fan. thanx. P.S. I hope that when you read the book, you get as much as I did!!

There is a lot of good to be said for this book. But the thing that jumps out and slaps me in the face, right off, maybe because I have dealt with new design students and new professionals for the past several years, is a few dumb comments such as "If you are going to be a good designer, fine. If you aren't don't bother. The field is full of mediocre talents as it is."

And how, pray tell, does one know whether one is going to "be good" during the first year of ones study? --Or even during the first few years of ones professional practice, when sweeping out the place may be included in your job description, and hands-on real world work may come your way slowly and in small discreet bits? And doesn't every creative person at one point or another question the worth and validity of what he or she is doing, EVEN after recognition has started rolling in and they understand that their work is generally perceived by their peers as good? Further, I would ask whether everyone HAS to be a Saul Bass or a Neville Brody. Isn't design a broad enough field to encompass the work of those with less Olympian ambition? Comments such as the one above are relatively few and far between, to be certain. But where on earth was the editor when pompous uninsightful stuff like this flew in under the radar? Although the sheer snideness of the comment may make many jaded pros cheer, I have to wonder what useable information this kind of comment contains for the neophyte at whom the book is supposedly aimed? --To show that a lot of jaded pros have a really bad attitude?

I do not favor the Pollyanna view whether we are talking art or careers. But I believe it is impossible to know how you will fare at something before you have been doing it a while. Thinking otherwise --for example, that a teacher in a design 101 class can tell you whether you are "any good" (and I have seen or heard about many students asking this very question)-- just intimidates and discourages people from being brave enough to give the life that they would see for themselves a try. To me, that is way too limiting.

This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.

I am a recent college graduate looking to get into a graphic design career and I found this guide to be excellent. At first I was a bit skeptical because it is heavy on interviews from practitioners but the later sections really delve into the business climate, how design companies grow and develop, and what career trajectories are like. Really, I do recommend this one.

...that challenges and inspires the reader. This book is completely engaging -you won't put it down. It is a book of essays on graphic designs and illustrations (in varied mediums and medias) that have made an impact on our culture and our world for better or worse. I now must read every other Steven Heller book in print!

I attend a school with a lackluster offering in the area of graphic design history. This book closed many gaps in my seeming self-education. Every chapter was well thought out, well designed and an thoroughly enjoyable read. Kudos to the authors.

I use this book as a catch me up for everyone one of my students who are interested in graphic design, but don't know anything about it. This book and the sequel "Design Literacy Continued" are easy to read, wide in scope and plow through touchy subjects like Racist Websites and the garbage all over contemporary magazines.

It's the best education I ever got sitting in the bathroom.