Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context

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.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Foreword by Steven Heller Introduction 1. Josef Müller-Brockmann: “schutzt das Kind!” and the Mythology of Swiss Design 2. Koloman Moser's Thirteenth Secession Exhibition Poster (1902): Anatomy of a Work of Viennese Graphic Design 3. Cassandre and Dubonnet: Art Posters and Publicité in Interwar Paris 4. Frank Zachary at Holiday: Travel, Leisure, and Art Direction in Post-World War II America 5. Food, Race, and the "New Advertising": The Levy's Jewish Rye Bread Campaign 1963-1969 6. Graphic Design and Politics: Thomas Nast and the “TAMMANY TIGER LOOSE” 7. The Politics of Learning: Dr. John Fell and the Fell Types at Oxford University in the Later Seventeenth Century Bibliography Index

About the Author :
David Raizman is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Art and Art History at Drexel University, USA.

Review :
Reading Graphic Design History is an important addition to the literature on Graphic Design. It serves a diverse audience of students, scholars, teachers and practitioners. This is the perfect companion volume to a survey text for anyone who teaches Graphic Design History. A collection of carefully researched and clearly presented case studies, each chapter offers a fresh and provocative reading of key works by important designers. Raizman's treatment covers a broad spectrum of issues from creative design through the production process to distribution and reception. Raizman is interested in the collaborative nature of Graphic Design as both an art form and a commercial enterprise. This is a gem of scholarship, treating multiple facets of a rich and complex subject in a masterful manner. Raizman's expert analysis ranges across a spectrum of material artifacts to uncover what has, for too long, been neglected in histories of modern graphic design. Reading this book will reward those who hunger for meticulous and inventive interpretation. Raizman treats each of his topics on its own terms, diving deeply into social, practical, and creative issues without shoehorning his subjects into ideological boxes. It is rare to find design writing this informative and this enjoyable. Through a series of seven case studies across a variety of graphic and typographic design, Reading Graphic Design History offers many fresh perspectives on interpreting designed objects. Arguing that individual graphic designs warrant the attention of deeply-considered contextual analysis, Raizman brings new approaches and ideas to the growing critical literature on graphic design. The book will engage all those interested in understanding how graphic design works, as well as serve students of graphic design and design history alike as a standard point of reference. David Raizman has done a great service to the studies of graphic design history with Reading Graphic Design History. Not only will the work be a fine addition to libraries but significantly, it should also find a place in the studio. Its intention to engage with students in a practical way is evident in the case study approach, and the very wide range of sources and over 200 valuable illustrations. Importantly, Raizman has emphasized aspects of graphic design history that are often overlooked, including, advertising and fine art, but also has made an engagement with the physical formats and technologies of production. His often forensic investigation within his case studies demonstrates how design history can be particularly useful within a studio teaching context, as it not only focused on the object but draws together a wide range of valuable contextual research. This important contribution, by a renowned scholar, has set a bench mark for future approaches to the methodologies used in design history. 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).