books

new tome in town

Review by Paul Shaw

Typography and Graphic Design: From Antiquity to the Present

Over the past quarter century, the study of the history of graphic design has gained a strong foothold in American design schools. This can largely be attributed to the success of A History of Graphic Design by Philip B.Meggs, published in 1983 and now in its fourth edition (co-written by Alston W.Purvis since Megg's death). Despite the book's widespread acceptance, Meggs—as it is known—has been subject to criticism, and several attempts have been made to create an alternative. Now there is Typography and Graphic Design by Roxane Jubert, a rival to Meggs in heft and page count.

Jubert's book is accompanied by ecstatic blurbs by Paula Scher, Massin, and Paola Antonelli; it has forewords by Serge Lemoine (for the French edition) and Ellen Lupton (for the English translation). This praise—along with Jubert's reputation as a design historian, her fresh perspective, and the clear, crisp design by Thomas Gravemaker—all create expectations that a new Meggs has arrived. Unfortunately, Typography and Graphic Design does not live up to these high hopes.

The problem begins with Jubert's introduction, in which she touches on important aspects of the study of design history without saying anything concrete. She lists what she considers the best of the existing literature but does not evaluate any of it. She praises the new interest in graphic design history, notes that there are gaps to be filled, and urges more publishing activity. These are all welcome points—especially the call for more research—but she is short on specifics. Most glaringly, Jubert does not define either typography or graphci design, which is odd given that she claims her book will balance the two terms in a way that previous (unnamed) surveys have failed to do.

What should have been a historiographical foundation for the text to come is a set of vague generalizations:Certain media and aspects of visual communication are scarcely dealt with here, she writes aobut the material missing from her survey, "and clearly another history might have allotted more place to popular graphics, to anonymous creation, to expressions of protest, to everday forms of advertising, to the illustrated book and graphic illustration, to the comic strip, to graphics for the screen (cinema, television, digital film), to signage—or to little-known facts and phenomena concerning area which history has tended to overlook, such as creations by women and, of course, non-Western civilizations."