The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design, 2017 [Steven Heller, Greg D'Onofrio]

The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Greg D'Onofrio, 2017. Abrams Books, USA. 9.5 x 11.5, 336 pages. Designed by Kind Company. Heavily illustrated with more than 785 color illustrations; many never published before. More at: themodernsbook.com

Modernism transformed American graphic design in the mid-twentieth century and established a visual language that still carries tremendous authority. The Moderns is the first comprehensive survey of this phenomenon that shaped our visual environment, presenting the work and lives of sixty-three graphic designers.

“I love this book so much. It’s almost as if you had downloaded my brain and retro-engineered a book where I would just plotz over every single illustration. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” ―Michael Bierut, Pentagram Design

Some were émigrés (including five Bauhaus students and faculty) who brought the gospel of Modernism to America from its sources in Europe. Others were homegrown talents who continued the legacy in the design capitals of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles from around 1937 with the founding of the New Bauhaus to 1970, the height of the International Typographic Style. Some of these designers are well-known, others are honored in this volume for the first time.

Interviews: “Steven Heller and Greg D'Onofrio on six modernist works that impacted the world of design.” ―It's Nice That and “Heller and D’Onofrio on the eclectic Modernists who defined an era.” ―Typeroom

Like Modernism itself, this selective group had varying viewpoints and methods yet were bound by governing principles of function, clarity, and simplicity held together through geometry, abstraction, and minimalism. Brand new hardcover, still in the original publisher's shrink wrap.