It’s a great textbook in terms of the content. However it is all over the place. It will constantly flip around different topics and the layout is difficult to read through - you’ll read page after page of text and then referenced images will show up in spreads.

Although this book was very informative, I got lost in all of the names, dates, and places. I'm so glad that there were plenty of pictures to offset the text. For a textbook, it would have been nice to have used bold print for important items, like definitions and important people.

One of the most comprehensive histories of graphic design I've read.

well, what is there to say. it's the de facto history book for graphic design. good to own.

I used to teach a course based on this book. The book, while the information contained within is good... is a great example of how to NOT design a book. The layout of the book makes this difficult to read and understand. The entire book is typeset in a swiss sans serif for the body copy. This made it extremely difficult for not only my students to read and comprehend, but also for myself. EVERY halfway decent Graphic Designer knows that body copy is always to be set (for any lengthy publication of mostly text) in a SERIF typeface to ease the reader into a flow and continue to advance when reading. My students and myself found ourselves constantly tripping over the fact we were re-reading paragraph lines of text we had already read. The typesetting and layout made advancing through the copy very difficult. Too bad the layout was terrible while the content was of good quality.

Because this book is the only complete book on this subject I was forced to continue to use it. I used this bad layout/typesetting as a prime example of what NOT to do in design. It demonstrated to my students how a good message can be lost in bad design. (And vice versa) This topic generated many a good classroom discussions on the subject.

It is a good book to read if you are wanting to learn about Art History and Graphic design!

It was a textbook, but I honestly really enjoyed it. I'd always viewed art history as disconnected from real life, and superfluous. But...art changes and shapes life all around it, and graphic design especially. Learning about the role of design in war-time propaganda, civil rights movements, and other various cultural movements was truly fascinating. Looking forward to diving into the history of Animation this quarter!

EXCELENTE LIBRO!!!