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"I
Heart Design: Remarkable Graphic Design Selected by
Designers, Illustrators, and Critics," edited by
Steven Heller; Rockport (216 pages, $45)
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What
makes a particular design — the familiar Coca-Cola
bottle, say, or the vivid yellow Kodak film box —
significant and unforgettable?
That's
the question that "I Heart Design" aims to
answer. Steven Heller, a former art director at the New
York Times, asked 80 experts in the field — including
designers, typographers and academics — to each pick
an influential example of graphic design that resonates
beyond the context in which it was made and place it
within the historical framework of the discipline.
Heller also asked them to explain why these particular
pieces move their souls.
"Design
triggers something in all of us that may be solely
aesthetic or decidedly content driven, but in the final
analysis, we are drawn to it through the heart and
mind," Heller writes in the introduction,
"...What is it that touches the heart, as well as
brain and eye, equally?"
The
result is a handsome book — with its Milton
Glaser-inspired title — that entertains as much as it
inspires.
The
personal pronoun in the title rings loudly through most
of the essays. Take the selection by artist-designer
Edwin Schlossberg (husband of Caroline Kennedy). He
gushes about "I Object Defy Myself," his own
1964 copper relief that alludes to Jasper Johns' work of
the same period in its use of stenciled letters. (Schlossberg's
choice of his own work trumps any notion that the
choices here might be selected objectively.)
Selections
run the gamut — magazines, logos, posters, maps,
illustrations, architecture, album covers, sculptures,
film title sequences, everyday objects and other
ephemera.
Shepard
Fairey picks John Van Hamersveld's "Pinnacle
Hendrix" poster, citing it as an influence on his
Andre the Giant images. Fairey writes that Van
Hamersveld's iconic work possesses all the criteria of a
"perfect image," that it's impossible to
imagine the work any other way or to improve upon it.
Van Hamersveld's posterized black-and-white style
informs much of the graffiti, street art and fine art
today, including Fairey's images (the Obama
"Hope" poster), Banksy and his possibly
manufactured alter ego, Mr. Brainwash.
If these
artists and their designs are unfamiliar to some
readers, others won't be. The CBS logo is celebrated by
two of the book's contributors — designers Sagi Haviv
and Woody Pirtle — who elaborate on its simplicity and
effectiveness in terms of sheer communicative power.
Designed by William Golden in 1951, the logo quickly
reached iconic status. Pirtle says it is "unlikely
to ever become dated," and Haviv uses it as a
benchmark to reach for — the logo, for him,
"stands like a beacon, not only for the modernist
ideal, but ... for good design."
One of
the more obscure discoveries is offered by designers
Ivan Chermayeff and Steff Geissbuhler, who both chose a
poster created by Armin Hofmann for a Swiss theater
production of "Wilhelm Tell." Each makes the
case that good design speaks to its intended audience by
calling upon presumed understanding of the subject and
then triggering different associations and
interpretations in each viewer's mind.
Some of
the short essays get bogged down by their academic tone,
but in general, readers will enjoy clear discussions of
the ability of the best designs to inform, distill and
clarify information and, ultimately, to cut through the
visual cacophony that litters our lives.
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