This is the first volume in a collection of books on design criticism. The articles are pulled from sources like the Journal of the AIGA, Print, and EYE magazine. The topics range the "ugly aesthetic" to the state of design education. The articles are all decent none really stick out as undeserving of a place in this collection. Paul (IBM logo) Rand Contributes an interesting essay on what purpose logos really serve and Paula Scher talks about the way she runs her classes at SVA. The essays all provide some food for thought(even it the thought is " I'd like to smack this guy.")Buy it and keep it with you It's a good thing to have around while your waiting for a bus, a haircut, or a class to begin.

If you're a designer or visual communicator, this book is a must have for research, history, and critical insight. Throughful, provocative, and daring, Looking Closer gauges the role of design across social and cultural divides. Its articles are collected from magazines such as Graphis, Eye, Communication Arts, and the AIGA Journal. Furthermore, the book is cheaper than getting a subscription to those magazines!

A collection of essays from various magazines, designers and typographers provides the student with an unmissable reference guide. Excellent as it is not only an enjoyable, interesting read, but also fantastic for essay writing as it condenses a library of books into one small paperback. No student should be without this book!

Paul Rand was a giant among designers, and one of the key reasons that graphic design exists as a profession in the United States. Heller, obviously a great Rand fan and friend(not to mention a prolific author), has given his subject his due, tracing Rand's evolution as an artist and the arc of his career. From a 1942 Autocar annual report whose design is astonishingly current to some work for Dubonnet that perhaps hasn't stood the test of time as well, Heller's choices of accompanying materials is excellent, illustrating as well as telling Rand's core philosophies: Effective graphic design is straightforward, purposed, and well-reasoned. This is a straightforward, well-assembled book that falls short in two very minor ways: While much is made of Rand's European influences, none of this work appears in the book, and select examples rather than just mention of Rand's contemporaries would have done a better job of placing his work in a more historical context.

I just received my book today and have not been able to put it down. Beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, Paul Rand by Steven Heller pays true homage to a man who was blessed with true talent, wit and intelligence. An amazing talent, and a fascinating book. A must-have for any serious design student or professional.

a book to keep for designers. heavy with ideas and great graphics. having known paul rand and being inspired by him the book also presented some graphics i have not seen as it was before my time. a book to refer to about design in general. solid text and research. miho

I'm not an illustrator but a small business owner who is thinking about recruiting an illustrator. Having read "The Business of Illustration," I wish to make my own *subjective* suggestions regarding this otherwise very good title.

If an illustrator, especially an inexperienced one wants to be a business then I would fear for him/her. Think about me trying to sketch a figure and that's the same for an illustrator who thinks s/he becomes a business once a corporation is established. Actually it is worse because I will immediately notice how my sketching is awful and drop the issue yet in a business failure comes in all forms and the reasons for failure is sometimes so difficult to analyze given the human ego.

In my view, Illustrators should find honest reps or businesspeople to work with and avoid becoming entrepreneurs until they accumulate good business experience through detailed observation.

There are nice courses (i.e. New School in Manhattan) geared towards people with no business background. Yet, even after taking such courses an illustrator should not jump into corporate world and continue his/her observations for another couple of years.

Artists, almost by definition, do not like business. Even the authors themselves celebrate the opportunity not to wear "three piece-suits." I would hardly imagine what I see as a 'business' and what an artist sees as a 'business' is similar to each other. For those ones who have established a dislike towards this profession that you even do not know yet wish to succeed in, I have one simple question.

How will you succeed in business if you don't LOVE IT ?

Arkin Kora

I hate to disagree with the other reviewer but, frankly, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Mr. Heller has written a wonderful book explaining the ins and outs of the illustration industry and it's crucial that ALL illustrators read it. The illustration industry is going through a terrible time at the moment with large corporations preying on the lonely illustrator, so it doesn't surprise me that the businessman below feels that illustrators shouldn't know their business!! Illustration IS a business, not a hobby and should be treated as such. Business and art can co-exist and illustrators can be some of the most creative business people I know.

Mr. Heller is a well respected Art Director/Author and you would do well to head his advice.

As a designer and teacher, I find this book to be an inspirational springboard. From practicality to exclusivity, this book offers samples that must inspire one to produce new and fresh ideas unless one is clinically brain-dead.

This book will be difficult to date. I have read it and re read it over and over and find the typefaces inside inspiring and can recommend it to anyone! Definitely one for the studio library. It reminds me of what lengths designers go to in their designing type ... awesome. Thoroughly used as a resource book. Everthing from Emigre to Thirst (my favourite) ...

Steven Heller and Louise Fili have captured the essence of the Art Deco era Italian style with clear, crisp, and colorful graphics. The quality of the book itself with it's quality paper stock and thick bendable hard/soft cover is outstanding. The quality of the curation and academic research was excellent. I will cherish this book always.

This is one great book for coming up with Deco designs. It really helps to make us visual types think in the Art Deco way.

if not just to look at the development of the corporate identity of various well known companies (and some that haven't changed!) then you surely need this book just for your retro-fixation... i know i did anyway.

In this age of computerized clip-art, the works housed in this collection may not be as impressive - or perhaps surprising - as they were at its 1988 publication. Still, the beauty of these trademarks and the cleverness of their design are both a pleasure to view and and a source of inspiration. By pulling these logos out of their sublimated context and displaying them front and center, they turn into works of art.

Baker and Blik have gathered together a wide range of logos, including some very familiar (The Pep Boys, Zig-Zag, Elsie the Cow), and many more hopelessly obscure - but no less fascinating. And by organizing around themes, the reader can get some ideas as to how themeatic elements came and went with the years.

A nice coffee-table or bathroom book that is also at home on a graphic designer's bookshelf.

I loved this book so much when I bummed it off a friend that I actually decided to buy it! After reading it, you'll never look at type without wondering what cultural and economic influences helped shape it. You'll also get a kick out of seeing how different countries treated type in the same art period. I get bored easily by too many dry sentences, so I geniunely appreciated all the examples of catalogs, posters, etc. the authors put in there. Hardback books can be a killer on the legs if you want to curl up with a good book, so the soft bound cover was a blessing. Anyway, enjoy!

Heller and Fili have done it again. If you love type, and want to get an eclectic overview of the development of typography in the twentieth century you will enjoy this book. . It's also a perfect companion to read with Heller's Graphic Style book. I use the pair as textbooks in the History of Graphic Design class I teach at Parsons School of Design in NYC.

Heller and Arisman are two School of Visual Arts (NY) professors who have achieved much in their careers. The conversation/interview between them is the strongest, most educational and most inspiring part of the book.

Brad Holland writes a detailed (but dry) description of the history of stock houses, the direction they are moving in now and how that relates to working artists.
Educational.

A very large portion of the book is a collection of art excercises useful to teachers creating curriculum or artists without the ability to direct themselves in the production of work. I found this area to be mildly interesting, but quite useless to me as an illustrator.

Teachers often tend to create excercises they would do very well themselves, but don't necessarily draw out the uniqueness of the individuals they are teaching. Success as an artist is following your own values of what a successful peice of art or illustration is.

I would have liked to read the perspectives of a more varied cross section of artists in addition to the New York city old guard. There is so much innovation happening in this field. To bemoan the fact that things aren't what they were, shows a lack of awareness of what the younger generation of artists do. Jump fences.

"I design my students to destroy me."
John Maeda of MIT Media Lab

"You are the next Picassos."
Sheridan College Faculty addressing the class in my foundation year 5 years ago.

My first thought when I really got into this book was "finally. An outlook on the career of an illustrator neither negative nor overly optimistic, but realistic and helpful." Being an illustration major I have several misconceptions about the field of illustration that were cleared up pretty quickly. I found the interview with Thomas Woodruff particularly insightful in the case of the illustration as low art issue, and I laughed my head off at Brad Holland's satirical lesson on art terminology. My advice is to buy this book not to decide whether or not illustration is the path for you, but to make sure you have a grasp on what you're getting into.

This book is great. It provides several different perspectives on the teaching of illustration today. Since alot of Illustration is taught by working illustrators it provides their first hand experience with illustration and the industry today. It ranges from lists of supplies one might need for a particular course taught, which i found trivial, but other pages are full of inspirational discussions on illustration by leaders in the field. I am a working illustrator, and love the art of illustration and reading this book has proven very worthwhile.

This is an excellent entry in the terrific Heller/Fili series on Deco graphics, but it isn't strictly a book of fonts. Like the other books ("German Modern", "French Modern", "British Modern", "Italian Art Deco"), it is a collection of striking graphic images from the period, this time with an emphasis on characteristic lettering styles. Relatively few of the fonts are shown in a complete and therefore usable form, so this book is more of an inspiration and a reference tool than a directly applicable source of type. But it's an inspiration for sure, and has been very helpful to me in my work, and it's also simply a visual pleasure.

Deco Type is a wonderful record of typography from the 1920's and 30's.Although it deals with mainly european type it shows a fantastic range within 'the style' that will also be recognizable and enjoyable to the American collector or historian.Until now the most valuble and informative source on Deco type that I have been able to find, a beautifully presented and un-misable book in my collection!

I wasn't quite sure what I was ordering, since at the time I ordered this book, no reviews had yet been written.

But I'm delighted I ordered it from Amazon!

It is a compendium of the most interesting, funny "pieces" about marriage, from marriage manuals of the 20's to movie posters that as stand-alone objects, are absolutely hilarious.....to songs about love and marriage...you name it, it's in here! The editors/authors really obviously had just a ball writing and collecting this, and their humor and enthusiasm carries, BANGO, right through to the reader.

If you've been reading too much heavy literature, as I had when I ordered this book, this will really lighten you up.

I nearly died laughing over the blurb about "OPEN MARRIAGE" by the O'Neils in the late 60's (or was it early 70's). In my first, most ludicrous marriage on earth, my first husband was a great believer in this, had me read it, and at the time, I took it quite seriously. What a hoot to read it again now and see how truly ridiculous it was! And it was such a sign of the times!

Each and every entry takes you back to the time it was written (even if you weren't around then), and really gives the reader a strong sense of the times.

The only things I'd have changed? I would LOVED to have read more deeply into the marriage manuals of old, would have loved to have read much more in detail on those....and I would have really loved to read at least a longish blurb from the "marriage/romance comic books" they mention only by title. I think lengthening these two aspects would have made me give this book a five-star rating.

No matter how you feel about marriage, you simply won't be able to resist being entertained by this book.

Wedding Bell Blues takes a refreshing look at marriage through a different angle than just another "how-to" or "this is what's supposed to happen" book. It has a vast compilation of movie posters, advertisements, and magazine covers that chronicle the marriages of fictional and real couples. If you are an entertainment buff like I am, you'll like this book as it has many quotes from entertainers and the like. One of the best parts of this book is reading through the obsolete sex/marriage manuals. This book is great for anyone, not just newlyweds or soon-to-be weds!