A Designer's Art

A Designer's Art, by Paul Rand, was first published in 1985, and has been reprinted this month. It features essays written by Rand throughout his life (including material from Thoughts On Design, which was also reprinted recently), and reproductions of his most acclaimed graphic designs (such as his Eye-Bee-M poster from 1981).

The new edition includes an afterword in which Steven Heller argues that it "reopened a genre of graphic design manifesto-monographs that had not existed since the 1930s". Heller (who has also written a comprehensive book on Rand) notes that A Designer's Art not only served as the portfolio of a legendary career, but also paved the way for later designers such as Stefan Sagmeister (Made You Look) to produce their own monographs.