Rick Poynor

An unprecedented look at the design archives of the iconic sportswear brand. In Autumn 2024 the Vitra Design Museum will present the first ever museum exhibition about Nike, the world’s most revered sport brand. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue mark the milestones in Nike’s six decade history and explores its ascent into a global brand that holds a central role in popular culture. The focus of the exhibition is on Nike’s design practice – from the company’s beginnings in the 1960s and the design of its famous “swoosh” logo to iconic products such as Air Max Air Jordan and Vapor Fly, and current research devoted to future materials and sustainability. The main source for the exhibition is the Department of Nike Archives, which contains a unique collection of drawings, prototypes and other documentation. The exhibition marks the most comprehensive access ever given to this archive. Among the objects on show are rarities and one-offs from the company’s early days in the 1960s, original design drawings and prototypes of iconic sneaker models, historical documents and films, as well as the results of collaborations with creative figures such as Virgil Abloh and Marc Newson. Nike: Form Follows Motion traces Nike’s design process, which begins with the scientific analysis of the human body in motion and material research and culminates in the finished product and its branding. Along with Nike designers like Bill Bowerman, Diane Katz, Tinker Hatfield and Eric Avar, athletes – from the world’s greatest to the everyday – have played an important role in this design process.

Exploring an unjustly overlooked figure in 20th-century British visual culture This book offers a comprehensive overview to the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism. He developed a particular interest in revolutionary Russia and began amassing a collection of graphic art and photographs—ultimately accumulating around 250,000 images that he shared with news outlets. Throughout his life, King blended political activism with his graphic design work, creating anti-Apartheid and anti-Nazi posters, covers for books on Communist history, album artwork for The Who and Jimi Hendrix, catalogues on Russian art and society for the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, and typographic covers for the left-wing magazine City Limits. This well-researched and finely illustrated publication ties together King’s accomplishments as a visual historian, artist, journalist, and activist.

A PRINT magazine and Design Observer Best Book of the Year The first English translation of a famous 1972 debate between Dutch graphic designers Wim Crouwel and Jan van Toorn, a public clash of subjectivity versus objectivity at Amsterdam’s Museum Fodor that helped set the stage for bold philosophical showdowns to come in design culture. Held in response to an exhibition of Van Toorn’s work at Stedelijk Museum, including student posters protesting the Vietnam War—in an era of youth culture and increasing resistance to authority, capitalism, and the power of media—the stakes were aesthetic, ethical, and politically charged. Crouwel defended his approach of neutrality and austere rationalism, attention to typography and worksmanship, and professionalism in service of the client’s message. Van Toorn argued for his use of chaos, collage, and photographs of everyday life; that a designer’s ideas, personality, and political commitments are integral to the work. Dialogue on The Debate has reverberated in graphic design circles for the four decades since, and it is often referenced in modern design criticism as a key marker for the philosophical positions that continue to define the profession. The first English transcript of this key event in design history will allow a contemporary audience to discover the ongoing relevance of The Debate in an increasingly complex visual culture. Along with the transcript, this pocket-sized clothbound book contains a foreword by prominent design critic Rick Poynor, and essays from Dutch design historian Frederike Huygen, who discusses the historical context of the debate, and curator Dingenus van de Vrie, who looks more closely at these two giants’ different perspectives on graphic design. A color gallery juxtaposes a representative selection from the oeuvres of Crouwel and Van Toorn, including exhibition designs, calendars, posters, brochures, artist book designs, postal stamps, and fascinating works such as the script of a 1969 stage production based on a story by Jorge Luis Borges, sealed in a tin can, and a many-gatefolded catalog for Ed Ruscha’s “Dutch Details” at Groninger Museum.

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.