Design Literacy:
Understanding Graphic Design

by Steven Heller and Karen Pomeroy

New York: Allworth Press, 1997. ISBN 1-880559-76-5.

Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens

In the past several decades, various authors have objected to approaches to graphic design history that focus on individual masters, movements, and styles; that analyze the structural attributes of a work (derided in this book as 'eye candy'); or that feature highbrow examples while leaving out simpler, more popular works.

This volume, which is one of the more inventive and thought-provoking books on design history in recent years, offers a plausible alternative: It consists of 93 'object lessons' in the form of engaging short essays about a wide variety of graphic icons, from the late 19th century to the present, ranging from the ubiquitous (shooting targets, the swastika, Joe Camel) to the esoteric (Emigre magazine, the Cranbrook posters, or April Greiman's self-portrait). Organized somewhat chronologically but in eight thematic categories (Persuasion, Media, Language, Identity, Information, Iconography, Style, and Commerce), the essays form readable 'stories' about the objects, the designers' thought processes, and the social and political circumstances from which they emerged.