About the Book
Before isms, ologies, and otics. Before the Chicago Bauhaus, Yale, RISD, Cranbrook, CalArts, and the School of Visual Arts, the correspondence school was the leading academy of what we now call graphic design. When advertising became a viable industry in America at the turn of the century, commercial artists including illustrators, boardmen, and letterers were in great demand. Advertisements for home schooling offered aspirants a chance to earn $65, $8, and more a week in a pleasant, profitable art career. And while these ads shared space in pulp magazines and comic books with schemes to learn dentistry and brain surgery, they nonetheless provided a legitimate way for anyone with a modicum of talent to learn a new profession in their spare time.—From the introduction by Steven Heller
This compelling collection of essays, interviews, and course syllabi examines how changing professional standards in graphic design have revolutionized the way design is taught, learned, and practiced. Forty-two top designers and educators talk theory, offer proposals, and discuss a wide range of educational concerns, from the dichotomies between theory and practice to the importance of mastering the traditional media of the field versus the need to learn new media and remain flexible in a changing world. Included are twenty-six essays; interviews in which such notables as Milton Glaser, April Greiman, Louis Danziger, and Sheila de Bretteville uncover how they acquired their knowledge of design and translated it into their careers; and a diverse and stimulating selection of course syllabi designed for the increasingly specialized needs of both undergraduate and graduate students.
Contributors: Roy R. Behrens, Andrew Blauvelt, Max Bruinsma, Jay Chapman, Moira Cullen, Paula J. Curran, Louis Danziger, Meredith Davis, Sheila de Bretteville, Johanna Drucker, Lisa Fontaine, Geoffry Fried, Milton Glaser, Michael Golec, April Greiman, Sylvia Harris, Lorraine Justice, Jeffery Keedy, Julie Lasky, Christopher Lenk, Ellen Lupton, Victor Margolin, Katherine McCoy, Ellen McMahon, J. Abbott Miller, Sharyn OMara, Rick Poynor, Chris Pullman, Michael Rock, Katie Salen, Douglass Scott, Stephen Skaggs, Virginia Smith, Deborah Sussman, Gunnar Swanson, Ellen Mazur Thomson, Michael Vanderbyl, Karen White, Lorraine Wild, Richard Wilde, Judith Wilde, and Michael Worthington. About the Author
Steven Heller is editor of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design and the chair of the MFA design department at the School of Visual Arts. He is the author or editor of more than seventy books on graphic design, and he is a contributor or contributing editor to nearly 25 magazines, including Print, U&lc, Eye Magazine, Communications Arts, ID magazine, Graphis, Design Issues, and Mother Jones. Since 1986 he has been senior art director of the New York Times, which he first joined as an art director in 1974. From 1967-1973, he served as art director for numerous publications, including Interview magazine, The New York Free Press, Rock Magazine, Screw magazine, Mobster Times, Evergreen Review, and the Irish Arts Center.
He was awarded three design grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, in 1986,1988, and 1990. In 1996, he received a Special Educators Award from The Art Directors Club of New York. He has been the curator of ten design exhibitions, including The Art of Satire at the Pratt Graphics Center and Art Against War at the Parsons School of Design. Since 1986, he has directed Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design, an annual symposium at the School of Visual Arts. He lives in New York.
