Design Is Storytelling and other design favorites

It combines the vernacular of commercial photography with twisted narrative tableaux and surrealistic imagery. The result is a publication that is itself a work of art which, through its accessible form as a magazine, and through its wide distribution, challenges the limits of the contemporary art economy.

The 2018 Toilet Paper wall calendar features photographs conceived by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari and taken from their magazine, an image-only publication devoted to the realization of surrealist ideas via commercial photography.

Design Is Storytelling

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

Good design, like good storytelling, brings ideas to life. The latest book from award-winning writer Ellen Lupton is a playbook for creative thinking, showing designers how to use storytelling techniques to create satisfying graphics, products, services and experiences. Whether crafting a digital app or a data-rich publication, designers invite people to enter a scene and explore what’s there. An intriguing logo, page layout or retail space uses line, shape and form to lead users on dynamic journeys.

Design Is Storytelling explores the psychology of visual perception from a narrative point of view. Presenting dozens of tools and concepts in a lively, visual manner, this book will help any designer amplify the narrative power of their work. Use this book to stir emotions, build empathy, articulate values and convey action; to construct narrative arcs and create paths through space; integrate form and language; evaluate a project’s storytelling power; and to write and deliver strong narratives.

Ellen Lupton is the author of numerous books on design, including Graphic Design: The New Basics (2008), Thinking with Type (2004, second edition 2010), Graphic Design Thinking (2011), Beautiful Users: Designing for People (2014) and Type on Screen (2014), How Posters Work (2015) and Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2016). She is Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in Baltimore. She received the AIGA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 2007.

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.

An art world parody of a children's primer on looking on art -- not for kids but very funny

PUBLISHER Dung Beetle Ltd

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

PUBLISHER Damiani

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

PUBLISHER Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Published by The Ice Plant.

A smart, small book for smart, small kids by illustrator Tamara Shopsin

PUBLISHER The Ice Plant

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.By Miriam Elia.

PUBLISHER Dung Beetle Ltd

Published by .

PUBLISHER

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.

PUBLISHER
Damiani

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

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