Design Is Storytelling and other design favorites

It is never too early to learn about abstraction--especially if celebrated illustrator Tamara Shopsin is doing the teaching. What Is This? is Shopsin's wordless children's book that will encourage imaginative thinking in readers both young and old. The miniature book, made for small hands, is filled with simple line drawings, executed with characteristic charm by Shopsin. Each drawing playfully adds to and alters the same basic squiggle, which is transformed across different contexts on each successive page: first the squiggle appears as the petals of a flower, next as a bird's nest, then a cowboy's lasso, then a plume of smoke from a factory chimney. Each time, only a few extra lines are required to suggest the conversion. By the end of the book, faced with an innocent squiggle, the question is not "what is this?" but rather, "what isn't this?"
Tamara Shopsin (born 1979) is a graphic designer and illustrator whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Good, Time, Wired and Newsweek. She is the author of the memoir Mumbai New York Scranton, designer of the 5 Year Diary and coauthor, with Jason Fulford, of the children's book This Equals That. She is also a cook at her family's restaurant, Shopsin's, in New York.

We Learn at Home

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.
By Miriam Elia.

In We Learn at Home, Miriam Elia’s follow-up to last year’s hit We Go to the Gallery, Mummy takes John and Susan out of their local school to be reeducated at home—though not before tagging the walls of St. James’ Primary with the words “Fascist Scum.” In order to introduce their young minds to a new, alternative worldview, Mummy will ground all learning in a feelings-based outlook, free of any actual facts or skills, and reevaluate core subjects such as mathematics, religion, philosophy and art. John and Susan burn the Union Jack, debate and learn to paint their inner children. Key vocabulary for young readers includes terms such as “Marx” and “Buddha.”

Pocket-sized, printed in bold colors and written in clear, simple English, the Dung Beetle Learning series pays tribute to and skewers the much-loved British Ladybird early learning children’s books of the 1960s, with our child protagonists learning about contemporary art and politics rather than helping their parents around the house. In We Go to the Gallery, Susan found that the decay of Western civilization smells like rubbish, John learned that some toys are only for venture capitalists and the siblings discovered that God is dead. What new lessons will Mummy teach?

X-rated: Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s

Published by Reel Art Press.
Edited by Tony Nourmand, Graham Marsh. Introduction by Peter Doggett. Designed by Graham Marsh.

This magnificent book is the new, expanded, complete edition of Nourmand and Marsh’s cult bestseller, with text by renowned writer Peter Doggett. The 1960s and ’70s were the Golden Age of the X-rated movie. For the first time, these films were shown in mainstream cinemas to a fashionable, young crowd. The “porno chic” movement around films like Deep Throat (1972), The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) and Debbie Does Dallas (1978) gave skin flicks an air of credibility that had never existed before. Johnny Carson and Bob Hope talked about Deep Throat on TV, and respected artists became involved in promotional campaigns for adult films.

Of all film genres, the X-rated movie is possibly the one that lends itself best to the use of posters as a promotional medium. Screaming taglines, provocative titles and scantily clad bodies are all elements that can be used to great advantage in poster form. Even though many of the adult movies of the ‘60s and ‘70s have faded into cinematic history, their posters remain an inspiration for graphic designers. And today they are wonderful, joyful period pieces that evoke the temptations and taboos of a bygone age of suspender belts, stockings and eye-popping, gravity-defying brassieres. To quote Steve Frankfurt’s iconic ad campaign for the soft core masterpiece Emmanuelle, “X was never like this.”

How Posters Work

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
By Ellen Lupton. Text by Caitlin Condell, Gail Davidson, Ellen Lupton.

With its unique focus on visual language, Ellen Lupton's How Posters Work is more than another poster book. Rather than provide a history of the genre or a compilation of collectibles, the book is organized around active design principles. Concepts such as "Simplify," "Focus the eye," "Exploit the diagonal," "Reverse expectations" and "Say two things at once" are illustrated with a diverse range of posters, from avant-garde classics and rarely seen international works to contemporary pieces by today's leading graphic designers. Illustrated with over 150 works from the collection of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, How Posters Work provides a stunning education in seeing and making, demonstrating how some of the world's most creative designers have mobilized principles of layout, composition, psychology and rhetoric to produce powerful acts of visual communication.

Ellen Lupton (born 1963) is an acclaimed writer, curator and graphic designer. She is Director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she also serves as Director of the Center for Design Thinking. As Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum since 1992, she has produced numerous exhibitions and books, including Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture (1996), Letters from the Avant-Garde (1996), Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002) and—most recently—Beautiful Users: Designing for People (2014). Lupton is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, one of the highest honors given to a graphic designer or design educator in the US.

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/12/2017

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.

“Whether interpreted as a scathing criticism of modern art, a primordial expression of the futility of life, or a hilarious twist on sanitized children's literature, We Go to the Gallery is unforgettable.” –Midwest Book Review

PUBLISHER Dung Beetle Ltd

Published by Damiani.Edited by Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari.

Since its first issue in June 2010, Toilet Paper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination.

PUBLISHER Damiani

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.By Ellen Lupton.

Ellen Lupton, award-winning author of Thinking with Type and How Posters Work, demonstrates how storytelling shapes great design

PUBLISHER Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Published by The Ice Plant.

PUBLISHER The Ice Plant

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.By Miriam Elia.

PUBLISHER Dung Beetle Ltd

Published by Reel Art Press.Edited by Tony Nourmand, Graham Marsh. Introduction by Peter Doggett. Designed by Graham Marsh.

PUBLISHER Reel Art Press

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.By Ellen Lupton. Text by Caitlin Condell, Gail Davidson, Ellen Lupton.

PUBLISHER Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

PUBLISHER
Dung Beetle Ltd

Published by Damiani.
Edited by Maurizio Cattelan, Pierpaolo Ferrari.

**Since its first issue in June 2010, Toilet Paper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination.**

PUBLISHER
Damiani

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
By Ellen Lupton.

**Ellen Lupton, award-winning author of Thinking with Type and How Posters Work, demonstrates how storytelling shapes great design**

PUBLISHER
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

PUBLISHER
The Ice Plant

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.
By Miriam Elia.

PUBLISHER
Dung Beetle Ltd

Published by Reel Art Press.
Edited by Tony Nourmand, Graham Marsh. Introduction by Peter Doggett. Designed by Graham Marsh.

PUBLISHER
Reel Art Press

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
By Ellen Lupton. Text by Caitlin Condell, Gail Davidson, Ellen Lupton.

PUBLISHER
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum