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Genius Moves: 100 Icons of Graphic Design

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For almost a decade, New York Times art director Steven Heller has contributed a column to PRINT magazine called "Separated at Birth," inwhich he features twin-like pairs of otherwise unrelated designs. In 1993, he and Julie Lasky wrote an entire book on "appropriation" in design, titled Borrowed Design: Use and Abuse of Historical Form (Van Nostrand Reinhold). This book is in part an extension of that, in the sense that it unearths and juxtaposes examples of graphic design that seem to be indebted to earlier efforts in art and design. It is shown convincingly, for example, that the abstract crosses in the work of the Russian Constructivists were probably inspired by the clerical garb of Russian Orthodox priests in the 15th century; or that the famous pointing hand in James Montgomery Flagg's "I Want You For the U.S. Army" poster (1917) was anticipated by a ubiquitous advertising display for a drink called Moxie (1911) and a World War I recruiting poster (1914) in which Lord Kitchener (in a pose identical to that of Uncle Sam) "points a finger" at unenlisted British males. For good or bad, this book has very little text: Other than a brief paragraph that introduces each icon, its only commentary is a well-written opening essay. But it offers an almost unparalleled wealth of more than 500 full-color illustrations of historic examples of graphic design. -Roy Behrens, Ballast

This book illustrates the recurring ideas, themes, styles, and forms that graphic designers have used over the past century. It shows me that nothing is really new, but it takes a talented designer to make the old seem like never before.