Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context

by David Raizman

Reading Graphic Design History uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction and typography, often addressing issues of class, race and gender.

David Raizman's innovative approach intentionally challenges the canon of graphic design history and various traditional understandings of graphic design. He re-examines 'icons' of graphic design in light of their local contexts, avoiding generalisation to explore underlying attitudes about various social issues. He encourages new ways of reading graphic design that take into account a broader context for graphic design activity, rather than broad views that discourage the understanding of difference and the means by which graphic design communicates cultural values. With a foreword by Steven Heller.

304 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2021

Reviews

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Raizman follows his History of Modern Design with heavily-illustrated 'readings' of well-known examples of graphic design aimed at students. His case studies include Josef Müller-Brockmann's 'schutzt das Kind!' (1952-3), picking up on current research in Swiss graphic design history by Robert Lzicar and Davide Fornari, and Cassandre's 'Dubo-Dubon-Dubonnet' posters (1932), which follows larger studies of French alcohol advertising by Sarah Howard and Marty Roth. Raizman's book joins titles such as Rebecca Houze's semiotic analysis New Mythologies (Bloomsbury, 2016), and Grace Lees-Maffei and Nicolas P. Maffei's wider contextual study Reading Graphic Design (Bloomsbury, 2019).