Mid Century Modern Graphic Design

A visual and comprehensive guide to a hugely popular graphic style. The distinctive aesthetic of mid-century design captured the post-war zeitgeist of energy and progress, and remains hugely popular today. In Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design Theo Inglis takes an in-depth look at the innovative graphics of the period, writing about the work of artists and designers from all over the world. From book covers, record covers and posters to advertising, typography and illustration, the designs feature eye-popping colour palettes, experimental type and prints that buzz with kinetic energy. The book features artworks from a wide selection of international designers and illustrators whose work continues to inspire and influence today, including Ray Eames, Paul Rand, Alex Steinweiss, Joseph Low, Alvin Lustig, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Leo Lionni, Rudolph de Harak, Abram Games, Tom Eckersley, Ivan Chermayeff, Josef Albers, Corita Kent, Jim Flora, Ben Shahn, Herbert Bayer and Helen Borten. Theo draws from a broad range of sources including advertising, magazine covers, record sleeves, travel posters and children’s book illustration to show the development of the design style globally, and how this continues to influence design today. The book is packed with hundreds of colour illustrations, including classic designs, such as Saul Bass’ film posters and Miroslav Šašek’s children’s books, alongside lesser-known gems.

In The Moderns, we meet the men and women who invented and shaped Midcentury Modern graphic design in America. The book is made up of generously illustrated profiles, many based on interviews, of more than 60 designers whose magazine, book, and record covers; advertisements and package designs; posters; and other projects created the visual aesthetics of postwar modernity. Some were émigrés from Europe; others were homegrown—all were intoxicated by elemental typography, primary colors, photography, and geometric or biomorphic forms. Some are well-known, others are honored in this volume for the first time, and together they comprised a movement that changed our design world.

This sophisticated A to Z picture book for adults is an illustrated journey through midcentury modern design, perfect for any reader with a keen eye for style. With eighty tales of design, laid out in a fun and easy-to-read A to Z format, design lovers will be reading this book to each other before bed. With an irreverent structure, this becomes a picture book for the refined adult. Each letter delves into one facet of this enduring era of design: midcentury modern homes, interior design, graphic design, and illustration, as well as the iconic personalities. We might all recognize the names--Charles and Ray Eames, Farnsworth House, the Egg Chair, Henningsen, Elrod House, the case study houses--but what are their stories? This book delves right into the facts and does so light-heartedly. We learn of the grand inspirations, or sometimes (it turns out) the very simplest of ideas, which fueled these Goliaths of midcentury modern design. The only downside: with your newfound design-savvy, you won't be able to look at your IKEA chairs the same way again. If you didn't know that E stands for Eames, Egg Chair, and Elrod House (or don't know what any of those words actually mean) then this book belongs on your coffee table. And if you can't afford an Eames coffee table, then rejoice in knowing that From A to Eames makes an inexpensive and equally satisfying alternative.

Essential reading for all collectors and design aficionados, this book is the ultimate survey of mid- century modern design and architecture now available in a sleek, compact form. A definitive survey of mid-century modern design and architecture in an accessible compact edition, this book offers a rich overview of one of the most popular, collectable, and dynamic periods of design. With rich and diverse examples of everything from furniture and lighting to ceramics and textiles to graphics and posters to interior design and architecture, this sleek compendium of mid-century style includes over 1,000 illustrations representing classic designs and little-seen rarities, as well as entries on nearly 100 major creators, such as Dieter Rams, Robin Day, Isamu Noguchi, Lucie Rie, Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, and Oscar Niemeyer. An additional illustrated dictionary features hundreds more influential mid-century designers, manufacturers, organizations, schools, and movements. Organized into three parts—“Media and Masters,” with six sections on applied arts; “Houses and Interiors,” featuring twenty seminal homes and their furnishings; and an “A–Z of Designers and Makers”—and complete with thirteen specially commissioned essays by renowned experts, this illustrated book is a must-have for collectors, design aficionados, and anyone seeking inspiration for their home.

Baseline Shift captures the untold stories of women across time who used graphic design to earn a living while changing the world. Baseline Shift centers diverse women across backgrounds whose work has shaped, shifted, and formed graphic design as we know it today. From an interdisciplinary book designer and calligrapher during Harlem's Renaissance, to the invisible drafters of Monotype's drawing office, the women represented here include auteurs, advocates for social justice, and creators ahead of their time. The fifteen essays in this illustrated collection come from contributors with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Baseline Shift is essential reading for students and practitioners of graphic design, as well as anyone with an interest in women's history.

Architects Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, Eliot Noyes, Edward Durell Stone, and others created an extraordinary collection of modern houses in New Canaan, Connecticut, in the 1940s and 1950s. The bucolic New England town—a suburb of Manhattan—became the site of fervent experimentation by some of the leading lights of the movement in the United States, the architects known as the Harvard Five, whose modern aesthetic could be traced to the Bauhaus school of design. There they promoted their core principles: simplicity, openness, and sensitivity to site and nature, and built glass, wood, steel, and fieldstone houses that established architectural modernism as the ideal of domesticity in the twentieth century. Architects Jeffrey Matz and Cristina A. Ross, photographer Michael Biondo, and graphic designer Lorenzo Ottaviani present this vanishing generation of iconic American houses as more than an issue of restoration or preservation, but as an evolving legacy that adapts to contemporary life. Selecting a representative group of sixteen houses covering the period between the 1950s and 1978, they portray each one in great detail, with floor plans, timelines, and both archival and luminous new photography—from the clean, minimalist look of the initial construction, to subsequent additions by some of the most significant architects of our time including Toshiko Mori, Roger Ferris, and Joeb Moore. Voices of the architects and builders, original owners and current occupants combine to describe how the houses are enjoyed and lived in today, and how the modernist residence is more than just a philosophy of design and construction, but also a philosophy of living.

Mid-Century Modern Interiors explores the history of interior design during arguably its most iconic and influential period. The 1930s to the 1960s in the United States was a key moment for interior design. It not only saw the emergence of some of interior design's most globally-important designers, it also saw the field of interior design emerge at last as a profession in its own right. Through a series of detailed case studies this book introduces the key practitioners of the period – world-renowned designers including Ray and Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, and George Nelson – and examines how they developed new approaches by applying systematic and rational principles to the creation of interior spaces. It takes us into the mind of the designer to show how they each used interior design to express their varied theoretical interests, and reveals how the principles they developed have become embodied in the way interior design is practiced today. This focus on unearthing the underlying ideas and concepts behind their designs rather than on the finished results creates a richer, more conceptual understanding of this pivotal period in modernist design history. With an extended introduction setting the case studies within the broader context of twentieth-century design and architectural history, this book provides both an introduction and an in-depth analysis for students and scholars of interior design, architecture and design history.

Who doesn't love to color? As an adult, now that you can stay in the lines, you only need to think about what color to use! Rockport Publishers presents a series of grown-up coloring books for art and design lovers. Just Add Color: Mid-Century Modern Mania includes 30 original designs from artist and illustrator Jenn Ski. Each book contains 64 perforated pages to make it easy to share, frame and hang your artwork. You'll be inspired by the sumptuous artwork in this book, and the use of color is endless. Relax, enjoy your creativity and Just Add Color.

From Pixar's upcoming film Incredibles 2, this making-of book is a dive back into the beloved world of the Incredibles. The Art of Incredibles 2 explores Pixar's highly anticipated sequel through colorful artwork, energetic character sketches, intriguing storyboards, and spellbinding colorscripts. Featuring gorgeous production art and interesting details from the production team about the making of the film, The Art of Incredibles 2 overflows with insights into the artistic process behind Pixar's engaging creative vision. Copyright ©2018 Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Pixar. All rights reserved.

The twentieth century was a landmark era in graphic design, the art that combines words with graphic images on posters, book and magazine covers, record jackets, billboards, and other print advertising and publicity media. This visually magnificent and factually informative volume tells the story of graphic design, then gives separate illustrated thumbnail biographies of more than 100 of the most influential and internationally known designers of the past 100 years. From the century's early decades we find artists' profiles and reproductions from the studios of Peter Behrens, Alexander Rodchenko, the Bauhaus, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a sampling of Art Deco, and much more. Examples of Mid-Century Modern include Lester Beall, Yusaku Kamekura, and jazz record covers from various sources. The Pop and Alternative Art eras gave us psychedelic graphics, militant socialist posters from Cuba, and the dramatic typographic designs of Herb Lubalin. Design in the Digital Era has included work by David Carson, Javier Mariscal, Eiko Ishioka, and many others. All illustrations are perfectly reproduced on high quality paper. The text was written by Jeremy Aynsley, an internationally recognized authority in the art of graphic design. Approximately 450 brilliant full-color photos and illustrations.