Eye Magazine

Only a few years ago we were told of the move away from the vestigial order of the printed word towards a ‘new world distinguished by its reliance on electronic communications.’ Yet despite the gibbering enthusiasm of techno evangelists, indications are that this shift may not be as dramatic as once thought. The book – often hard-backed, large-format and beautifully printed – is alive and well and lining the shelves of designers’ libraries. So what should we expect, as a glossy avalanche of such books spills out into the design community? Do these thick volumes constitute a genuine history of contemporary graphic design or are they merely repositories of graphic ephemera.

Unpacking my library
My first introduction to the world of graphic design was though the books and magazines overflowing the bookshelves of my parents’ home in Texas. For a kid interested in the visual arts it was paradise to be allowed to rummages through the pages of beautifully printed copies of Graphis, Print and Communication Arts magazines, books written by the Swiss Modernists Josef Müller-Brockmann, Armin Hofmann and Karl Gerstner, as well as classics by Eric Gill, Beatrice Warde and Jan Tschichold. At one point I remember my father coming home from a bookshop trip with the then newly published American edition of Hans Wingler’s The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago.
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Teal Triggs, Director of Postgraduate Studies and Research, School of Graphic Design, LCP, London

Read the full version in Eye no. 27 vol. 7, 1998