- Publisher
- Princeton Architectural Press
- Published
- 2008
- Shelf
- design: Fundamentals
- ISBN
- 9781568987705
Fundamentals
Graphic Design: The New Basics
Ellen Lupton & Jennifer Cole Phillips
The raw material of visual form, one idea per chapter: point, line, plane, rhythm, balance, scale, texture, transparency.
Why read it
Lupton rebuilt the Bauhaus foundation course for people who work on screens. Each chapter isolates one property, shows student work exploring it to the edge, and refuses to move on until that property is understood alone. It is the closest thing in print to a first year at a good art school.
Why own it
It is a book of exercises as much as a book of theory, and the exercises still work twenty years into a career when your eye has gone lazy in one direction.
Who it is for
Self-taught designers filling in the foundation year they never had.
Reading order
Book 1 of 6 in the graphic design reading order, where it starts. See all 6
Read nextGrid Systems in Graphic DesignJosef Müller-BrockmannWith form understood, Müller-Brockmann shows how to organise it, building a working grid step by step from a blank page.Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
