Books by Steven Heller

Stencil Type

by Steven Heller, Louise Fili

An invaluable collection of underappreciated stencil typography through history.
Designers often look to the past to inform their work. In this new paperback edition, design gurus Steven Heller and Louise Fili explore the variety and influence of the world’s most ubiquitous typographic style, which dates to prehistoric times and has been used on a range of surfaces, from street signs, buildings, and bridges to packaging and posters.
This expansive sourcebook presents hundreds of international examples of stencil typography from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. The wonderful array of stencil types highlights surprising instances of artistry and ingenuity from a broad range of locations and objects―from military, traffic, and transportation to home decoration, mass communication, and street art. And the survey is global, drawing on design from America, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Eastern Europe.
An introduction surveys the history and applications of stencil typography, and samples of stencil type ordered by their geographic origin. Illustrated in color and black-and-white throughout

Comics Sketchbooks: The Private Worlds of Today's Most Creative Talents

by Steven Heller

From political cartoons to offbeat graphic stories, from the “funnies” to underground comics: a contemporary look at comic art from around the world in a volume packed with vibrant visuals, deft texts, and arresting human observation From cartoons to graphic novels, from humor to superheroes, comics are the world’s most popular form of illustration. And, as in all forms of illustration, artists and designers experiment with visual ideas, image-and-word play, narrative sequencing, and stylistic flourishes through sketching. What we rarely see is the creative thinking―the doodling―that leads to fully formed visual ideas and stories. Comics Sketchbooks presents the private notebooks of eighty-two of the world’s most inventive, innovative, and successful artists alongside new talents and emerging illustrators. The artists have been selected by the world’s leading critic and most knowledgeable source in the field of graphic design and illustration, Steven Heller, who has had personal access to some of the most private and unseen material. Although there have been several comic-book compilations over the years, none has the visual excitement, insight, and mind-blowing creativity― and fun―of this one. 700 illustrations in color and black and white

Illustration: A Visual History

by Seymour Chwast, Steven Heller

This unique visual history of the art of illustration, by the foremost historian of graphic design and a well-known illustrator and designer, joins the authors’ previous Graphic Style as an indispensable resource for anyone interested in art, design, and popular culture.

Illustration has long been a significant popular art—and is often more visible, recognizable, and memorable than “higher” arts. Editorial and advertising illustration in all its many forms is so integral to our understanding of news, views, literature, and commerce that it is easily taken for granted. Nonetheless, it has an impressive history and remains a vital influence on visual culture. This book is a rich chronicle, celebration, and survey of well over a century of illustration. It deftly reveals the visual mannerisms, quirks, and tics that characterize drawn, painted, and digitized illustrations in different styles, and places leading illustrators in historical context.

The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion

by Steven Heller, Christine Macy, Jane Wolff, Barry M. Katz, Todd Smith, Jennifer Bloomer, Tim Culvahouse

In the wake of the Great Depression, one of Franklin Roosevelt's most successful New Deal programs was the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal government owned corporation created in 1933 to revitalize the Tennessee River Valley. The TVA provided navigation, flood control, electricity generation, strategic materials for national defense, economic development, unemployment relief, and an overall improvement of living conditions in this once-impoverished rural area. The TVA Architects Office built a huge number of structures during the late 1930s and early 1940s, including the many dams that dramatically altered life in the Tennessee River Valley. Its design agenda was comprehensive, addressing all scales of design from door handles to landscape with equal dedication. The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion, the most in-depth examination of the TVA ever assembled, includes essays by experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and the fine arts.
In serving the social, political, and economic endeavors of the government, TVA architects directly helped shape the nascent American design culture and, arguably, create the finest extended body of modernist architecture and certainly its most technologically sublime in North America. Featuring an afterword by Senator Howard Baker, Jr. and new photography by Richard Barnes, The Tennessee Valley Authority interweaves technical, political, aesthetic, and cultural concerns to complete a missing chapter in the study of modern American architecture and design.

Toys: 100 Years of All-American Toy Ads / 100 Jahre Amerikanische Spielzeugwerbung / 100 Ans de Pubs Americaines

by Steven Heller, Jim Heimann

Up until the 20th century, children’s play was not a subject that demanded much attention. While objects that entertained children have been present from ancient history, it was only with industrial mass production—and a developing urban middle class—that toys appeared more frequently. As playthings began to display a robust economic performance, an industry rose to provide this new market with the objects of their desire. European manufacturers dominated the toy market, with Germany, in particular, supplying the American market with the bulk of both singular and mass-produced products. World War I ended its dominance, and by the 1920s, bolstered by American ingenuity and an ever-growing consumer culture supported by the media empires of newspapers, radio, and television, American toys became ubiquitous in the consumer market.
Ranging from the simple to the complex, children were inundated with a commodity to be wished for and sold to by the millions. From frilly dolls to science sets, children were marketed to with gusto, first through magazines and comic books and later through television. Toys fell along familiar gender lines all while being developed with the unspoken subtext of stimulating developing minds and being vehicles of problem solving with educational value.
If the first part of the 20th century represented the rise of toys in America, the postwar period signaled a market unleashed by the baby boom. That one event gained traction for the toy industry and propelled it to its current state. Unforeseen was the next chapter in the industry—the advancement of the technical revolution—which would create another dimension of toy products that would captivate both children and adults as one century blended into the next.
In the world of toy production, the multimillion dollar industry took the advertising of its product seriously, and toy manufacturers inundated customers with their latest product via trade journals. In New York City, the hub of the toy industry for most of the 20th century, annual trade shows introduced a deluge of new playthings to the buying public. Frisbees, board games, baseball mitts, Hula-Hoops, air rifles, video games, dolls, and miniature trains were all served up to generations of children, cementing forever the memories of playtime.
Filled with a Santa’s sack full of surprises, Toys. 100 Years of All-American Toy Ads takes us down the aisles of America’s toy stores delivering the favorites and forgotten memories of toys that were hugged and hoarded, saved and disposed of, and now finally brought back in their pristine glory. Once again it’s Christmas, your birthday, and a reward for a job well-done.

Menu Design in Europe: A Visual and Culinary History of Graphic Styles and Design 1800-2000

by Steven Heller

Jim Heimann’s new book on Menu Design in Europe is a mouthwatering feast for the eyes, featuring hundreds of European menus from the early 19th century to the end of the millennium. At once a history of continental cuisine and a sprawling survey of graphic styles, Menu Design in Europe satisfies the craving for foodies and design enthusiasts alike.The dominance of French cuisine provided the template for the culinary delights that spread throughout (and beyond) the continent. As restaurants and dining experiences increased in the 19th century, the need for a more formal presentation of available items resulted in a range of printed menus that could be both extravagant and simple. The 1891 menu from Paris’s Le Grand Vefour, with its intricate die-cut design, evokes a bustling Belle Epoque bistro, while the 1932 menu from London’s Royal Palace Hotel transports you to the bar at a spirited, Jazz Age nightspot. On the opposite side of the design spectrum, the menu for the mid-century Lasserre restaurant expresses a surrealistic simplicity. A range of stylistic decades is represented, from masterpieces of Art Nouveau and Art Deco to the graphic appropriations of the German Democratic Republic. Also showcased are the Michelin awarded restaurants of the celebrity chef–era and rarities such as a German military menu from World War II.More than just bills of fare, these menus often represent a memorable dining experience, at times being presented with as much care and attention to detail as the meal itself. So, although one cannot sit in La Tour D’Argent in 1952 and sample its famous duck dish Le Caneton Tour d’Argent, we can surely imagine what it was like when looking at the waterfowl-themed illustration displaying the night’s offerings. Featuring an essay by graphic design historian Steven Heller and captions by leading ephemerist and antiquarian book dealer Marc Selvaggio, Menu Design In Europe features menus from leading collectors and institutions, providing a sumptuous visual banquet and historical document of two centuries of culinary traditions.

The Illustrator

by Steven Heller, Julius Wiedemann

For the last couple of years, Steven Heller and Julius Wiedemann have traced the latest developments in illustration around the globe—and for all those who thought digital heralded the end of an era, they’re here to set the record straight.

There were extraordinary eras before mass media changed our viewing habits, back in the day when illustration was the primary means of illuminating the word on paper—all the way to today, when we get our words and images on screens as small as a watch face. In this environment, today’s designers and artists are holding their own brilliantly. Illustration is more free and varied than ever, and it is ubiquitous in all kinds of media, from paper to screen to books, packages, clothing, cars, and restaurants.

This book celebrates the sheer quality, diversity, intensity, comedy, vivacity, and exceptionality of the work being created by illustrators right now. The artists in this collection are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but they represent a compelling snapshot of the styles, techniques, and use of color by artists around the world. We dare you to pick your favorites.

20th Century Alcohol & Tobacco

by Steven Heller, Allison Silver

Vices or virtues: drinking and smoking provided marketers with products to be forged into visual feasts. In this lush compendium of advertisements, we explore how depictions of these commodities spanned from the elegant to the offbeat, revealing how manufacturers prodded their customers throughout the 20th century to imbibe and inhale.Each era’s alcohol and tobacco trends are exuberantly captured page after page, with brand images woven into American popular culture so effectively that almost anyone could identify such icons as the Marlboro Man or Spuds MacKenzie, figures so familiar they could appear in ads without the product itself. Other advertisers devised clever and subliminal approaches to selling their wares, as the wildly successful Absolut campaign confirmed. Even doctors contributed to a perverse version of propaganda, testifying that smoking could calm your nerves and soothe your throat, while hailing liquor as an elixir capable of bringing social success.Whether you savor these visual delights, or enjoy inhaling and wallowing in forbidden pleasures, you will certainly be thrilled by this exploration of a decidedly vibrant—and sometimes controversial—chapter of advertising history.

Menu Design in America (Bibliotheca Universalis)

by Steven Heller, John Mariani

Until restaurants became commonplace in the late 1800s, printed menus for meals were rare commodities reserved for special occasions. As restaurants proliferated, the menu became more than just a culinary listing: it was an integral part of eating out, a clever marketing tool, and a popular keepsake.
Menu Design is an omnibus showcasing the best examples of this graphic art. Illustrated in vibrant color, this compact volume not only gathers an extraordinary collection of paper ephemera but serves as a history of restaurants and dining out in America. Featuring both covers and interiors, the menus offer an epicurean tour and insight to more than a hundred years of dining out.
An introduction on the history of menu design by graphic design writer Steven Heller and extended captions by culinary historian John Mariani accompany each piece throughout the book. Various photographs of restaurants round out this compendium that will appeal to anyone who enjoys dining out and its graphic and gastronomic history.

About the series
Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

100 Illustrators

by Steven Heller, Julius Wiedemann

Drawn from TASCHEN’s Illustration Now! series, this go-to catalog brings together 100 of the most successful and important illustrators around the globe. With featured artists including Istvan Banyai, Gary Baseman, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Brad Holland, Mirko Ilic, Anita Kunz, and Christoph Niemann, the international overview provides an invigorating record of the dynamism and diversity of the illustration scene.

Each illustrator is featured with a self-portrait, samples from their portfolio, and a succinct description by Steven Heller, with a supplementary list of selected exhibitions and publications. In his introduction, Steven Heller describes the dynamic realm of illustration today and the challenging process of selection within this highly competitive and ever-moving genre.

Illustration Now! Portraits

by Steven Heller

The field of illustration has flourished over the last decade, with professionals working both on computers and by hand. In illustration, the single most challenging and captivating subject has been the portrait, frequently used in editorials, advertising, products, and most recently, being the subject of major exhibitions.
This book gathers together the exclusive portrait work of over 80 illustrators from all over the world, many of whom were featured in our Illustration Now! series, including Aaron Jasinski, André Carrilho, Hanoch Piven, Anita Kunz, Jody Hewgill, and Dugald Stermer. The book also includes an index of subjects and an introduction by graphic design historian Steven Heller.Illustration Now! is your essential work of reference to the world’s latest, most exciting artists. The series’ easy-to-navigate A–Z entries include current and recent projects and artist information such as biographical details, listed agents, exhibitions, and websites.

About the series
Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

by Veronique Vienne, Steven Heller

This accessible book demonstrates how ideas influenced and defined graphic design. Lavishly illustrated, it is both a great source of inspiration and a provocative record of some of the best examples of graphic design from the last hundred years. The entries, arranged broadly in chronological order, range from technical (overprinting, rub-on designs, split fountain); to stylistic (swashes on caps, loud typography, and white space); to objects (dust jackets, design handbooks); and methods (paper cut-outs, pixelation).

Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster

by Steven Heller

From critic and historian Steven Heller and award-winning illustrator Seymour Chwast, Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster is a visual survey of graphic design styles through the ages that is an essential resource for designers, art and design students, and art lovers and “should be on the shelf of every serious designer/illustrator” (Studio magazine).

With more than 700 illustrations, it is the only wide-ranging history of graphic design to be completely visual, and many readers treasure it for its amazing trove of images. This fourth edition has been brought up to date with a new section that encompasses trends from the last decade.

Teaching Graphic Design History

by Steven Heller

Teaching Graphic Design History is the first collection of essays, syllabi, and guides for conveying the heritage of this unique practice, from traditional chronologies to eclectic themes as developed by today’s historians, designers, scholars, and documentarians.

Teaching the history of graphic design cannot simply be outlined by dates nor confined by places, but is defined by concepts and philosophies, as well as those who made, make, and inspire them.

Long overlooked within the broader history of printing and typesetting, when graphic design’s artifacts finally became the subject of serious study, the historian had to determine what was worthy and on what the history of graphic design should focus: the makers or the artifacts, the content or the context, or all of the above. With the author’s distinct viewpoint and many exclusive contributions, Teaching Graphic Design History chronicles the customs and conventions of various cultures and societies and how they are seen through signs, symbols, and the artifacts designed for use in the public—and sometimes private—sphere. Areas of focus include:

• Social and political effects of graphic design
• Philosophical perspectives on design
• Evolution of branding
• Development of the graphic design profession
• Predictions for the future of the practice

The Graphic Design Idea Book: Inspiration from 50 Masters

by Steven Heller, Gail Anderson

This book serves as an introduction to the key elements of good design.

Broken into sections covering the fundamental elements of design, key works by acclaimed designers serve to illustrate technical points and encourage readers to try out new ideas. Themes covered include form, narrative, color, type and image, ornament, simplicity, and wit and humour.

The result is an instantly accessible and easy to understand guide to graphic design using professional techniques.

Typographic Universe

by Steven Heller, Gail Anderson

A celebration of the world of letters found or created in unexpected places: natural, artificial, and urban alike
Even non-graphic designers know that type is everywhere: fonts and typefaces fill everything we consume or inhabit. They communicate, inform, sell, explain . . . and yet finding serendipitous letterforms in the least likely locations can also excite and inspire. Once experienced, it is impossible not to see letters in anything from forests to housing projects, from leaves to brickwork. The eye becomes accustomed to seeing a world built of letters.
Unlike most books on typography that present the “best” and most refined examples, the object here is to reveal the "lost" or "unseen" typographies in nature and our cities. From machine-made and sculptural forms to flora and fauna, from the fading ghost types on buildings from a pre-digital age to the subterranean forms found beneath our urban centers, from crowd-sourced creations to the popular vernacular, there is a universe of letterforms all around us.

500 illustrations in color

Type Journal: A Typeface and Lettering Sketchbook (Thames & Hudson Gift)

by Steven Heller, Rick Landers

A journal for sketching, tracing, and coloring classic typefaces. An illustrated gallery offers terminology and tips from the pros.

Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

by Steven Heller

Author and design expert Steven Heller has revisited and revised the popular classic Design Literacy by revising many of the thoughtful essays from the original and mixing in thirty-two new works. Each essay offers a taste of the aesthetic, political, historical, and personal issues that have engaged designers from the late nineteenth century to the present—from the ubiquitous (the swastika, antiwar posters) to the whimsical (MAD magazine parodies). The essays are organized into eight thematic categories—persuasion, mass media, language, identity, information, iconography, style, and commerce.

This revised edition also highlights recent trends in graphic design such as aesthetic changes in typography in the digital age and the nexus between graphic design and wired culture. This is an eclectic look at how, why, and if graphic design influences our ever-evolving, diverse world.

Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

Slab Serif Type: A Century of Bold Letterforms

by Steven Heller, Louise Fili

A compact, yet comprehensive design resource, expertly selected by graphic design’s leading historians
The slab serif typeface―in their classic form, wood types made for large-scale posters, ads, and newspapers―may not be as all-purpose as the gothic or sans serif, but it is equal, if not more powerful, in graphic appeal. Since being introduced in the nineteenth century, slabs have become ubiquitous and are today as popular as ever.
Slabs come from a genre of Egyptian typefaces (some of the leading slabs are called Cairo and Sphinx) brought back to France by Napoleon and marketed in specimen sheets and books as representing a glorious heritage brought to the present. In 1931, Morris Fuller Benton created the Stymie typeface, a reworking of a slab serif type popular in Europe at that time: Memphis. The IBM logo is one of the most famous slab serif marks. The serifs were often exaggerated so they would not result in simply beautiful letterforms but would be functionally superior to other faces. Slabs, therefore, came in many iterations and were eventually recognized as a face with many characters―and nationalities.
Following the cult typography volumes Scripts, Shadow Type, and Stencil Type, this new volume comprises an artfully curated selection of hundreds of international and classic examples to inspire fresh and unexpected typographic ideas.
500+ illustrations, 450+ in color

Type Wrap: 10 Sheets of Wrapping Paper with 12 Gift Tags

by Steven Heller, Rick Landers

Ten sheets of wrapping paper featuring typefaces with twelve gift tags. Each sheet of wrapping paper and gift tag features a different typographic design from Type Deck, allowing typography and graphic design enthusiasts to mix and match.

All-American Ads of The 70s

by Steven Heller

Both eclipsed and influenced by television, American print ads of the 1970s departed from the bold, graphic forms and subtle messages that were typical of their sixties counterparts. More literal, more in-your-face, 70s ads sought to capture the attention of a public accustomed to blaring, to-the-point TV commercials.

All was not lost, though; as ads are a sign of the times, racial and ecological awareness crept into everything from cigarette to car advertisements, reminding Americans that everyday products were hip to the modern age. In an attempt to discover how best to communicate with a mass audience, marketing specialists studied focus groups with furious determination, thus producing such dumbed-down gems as "sisters are different from brothers," the slogan used for an African-American hair product. By the end of the decade, however, print ads had begun to recoup, gaining in originality and creativity as they focused on target audiences through carefully chosen placement in smaller publications.

A fascinating study of mass culture dissemination in a post-hippie, television-obsessed nation, this weighty volume delivers an exhaustive and nostalgic overview of 70s advertising.

All-American Ads of The 60s

by Steven Heller, Jim Heimann

With the consumerist euphoria of the fifties still going strong and the race to the moon at its height, the mood of advertising in the sixties was cheerful, optimistic, and at times, revolutionary. The decade's ads touted perceived progress-such as tang and instant omelets - "just add water"-while striving to reinforce good old American values.

Stars like Sean Connery, Woody Allen, Salvador Dalí, and Sammy Davis Jr. endorsed everything from bourbon to handmade suits in an attempt by Madison Avenue to urge Americans to open their wallets and participate in one giant consumer binge. Social change at the end of the era brought psychedelic swirls and liberated women and minorities to a newly conscious public. Keep an eye out for some of the more surprising and controversial ads-such as Tupperware billing its storage container as a "wifesaver."

From forgotten cars, to cigarettes to food and much more, this colorful collection of print ads explores the wide, wonderful world of 60s Americana.

All-American Ads of The 2000s

by Steven Heller

Post-9/11, America's sense of invincibility was shaken. The dotcom bubble had burst, there was war with Iraq, and eco-angst was becoming mainstream, as evidenced by impressive sales of the Toyota Prius.

For escapism, self-expression, and even romantic connection, America turned to tech. Geeks were the new superheroes, and the iPod and iPhone reigned supreme, both commercially and creatively. Social media began its unstoppable rise, with MySpace and Facebook pushing brands to get more interactive with consumers. Prestige dramas--The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad--populated the small screen, while Netflix swapped mailing DVDs for streaming content, the reality TV star was born, and Paris Hilton decreed, "That's hot!".

Amazon and eBay threatened the cultural centrality of the shopping mall, and every famous name from Michael Jordan to Madonna could be found on scotch, sneakers, and scents. Health and wellness fueled the growth of brands like Whole Foods and Lululemon, and consumers increasingly valued experiences, ethics, and personalization.
Featuring 10 chapters covering the full range of advertising, from food and fashion to entertainment, business, travel, and automobiles--with special mentions for the worst as well as the best--All-American Ads of the 2000s captures a time when ads still had the power to sell products and dreams in the millions, but mirrored a nation in the midst of profound transition.

The Education of a Design Writer

by Steven Heller, Molly Heintz

From prolific design writers and educators at the SVA/NYC, Steven Heller and Molly Heintz, a compelling collection of essays and interviews for anyone interested in critiquing, explaining, or interpreting design
 
Writing is designing, and writers are designers. Mastering the elements of different writing styles is as important in describing a designed work as an understanding of color, texture, and material form. The design writer must make the prose as necessary and exciting to read as a designed object––from the simplest business card or product packaging to the grandest monument––must be to see and to use.  
 
This book is for the student or the expert, the novice or the professional, who seeks to communicate. With real-world examples of how and what to write when critiquing, explaining, discovering, introducing, and interpreting a piece of design, it presents a tantalizing world of possibilities for any design writer. The collected essays include a range of styles and disciplines, from journalism, scholarship, criticism, and business. Contributors include:

• Sarah Boxer
• Akiko Busch
• Liz Danzico
• Jarrett Fuller
• Colette Gaiter
• Karrie Jacobs
• Mark Kingsley
• Julie Lasky
• Warren Lehrer
• Rob Walker
• Michele Y. Washington
• and many more!

Free Hand: New Typography Sketchbooks

by Steven Heller, Lita Talarico

In Free Hand: New Typography Sketchbooks, Steven Heller, respected graphic-design commentator, and Lita Talarico, design educator, offer glimpses inside the personal sketchbooks of more than 70 designers and typographers--including Philippe Apeloig, Ed Beguiat, Hoefler & Co., Henrik Kubel, Toshi Omagari, and Francesco Zorzi. Featuring a wealth of sketches, precision drawings, and computer-generated artwork, as well as a range of styles, concepts, languages, and alphabets, Free Hand illustrates the idiosyncratic creative processes behind the design of typefaces, logos, and word-images. A valuable resource for anyone who engages creatively with type--whether by hand or on a screen--this rich compendium emphasizes the power of typography in the digital age, while celebrating designers who continue to innovate in their practice of this time-honored craft.