Mixing Messages

Résumé : Every library contains myriad books documenting the impact of technology in the emerging information age and the parallel evolution of a media-saturated culture over the last two decades. But even as pundits so often discuss the increasing centrality of image and form in our world, too few works exist that either document the recent changes in the field of design or analyze the ubiquity of visual expression. Integrating both these goals successfully, as this catalog to an exhibition at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum does, is a feat worthy of attention. Lupton, curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt and author of Design Writing Research (Kiosk, 1996), one of the most incisive and far-ranging works on graphic design in recent years, is uniquely qualified to bring these issues to a larger public. Individual chapters look at broad developments in design culture and trends in visual expression in public space, typography, corporate identity, and publishing. Innumerable examples range from billboards and book jackets to palm cards for clubs and fanzines. Lupton's trenchant text makes this more than just a best-of collection, however, giving readers a comprehensive context for understanding designers' hidden meanings.