Icons of Graphic Design

Steven Heller, Mirko Ilic

The impact of more than one hundred years of aesthetics, form, and content on developments in graphic communications.

This unique history of design, documenting over a century of creative brilliance, has now been brought into the twenty-first century. Showcasing the most influential designs and designers from 1900 to the present, this outstanding collection illustrates how the best ideas perpetuate themselves over time, one great concept inspiring the next.

More than one hundred seminal images—one from each year—are shown alongside the works that influenced their creation and the designs that were inspired or evolved from them. Examples include work from both famous and anonymous graphic artists from Toulouse-Lautrec to Milton Glaser and Art Chantry, visually juxtaposing each example to illustrate a theme or artistic device.

Contributors

Steven Heller

Author

Steven Heller is co-chair of the MFA Design: Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, New York. His many previous books include
Typographic Universe, New Modernist Type, and Scripts.

Mirko Ilic

Author

Mirko Ilic, the New York-based graphic designer, has won numerous awards for his hand-drawn design work.