The Design Book List for May 2016 is filled with current and upcoming releases on graphic design, architecture, landscape and plenty of other interesting topics. Look out for these design book releases throughout the month of May.
In this month’s Design Book List expect to find: “Min: The New Simplicity in Graphic Design,” “Architects in Industrial Design,” “Living Roofs,” “The Take of Tomorrow: Utopian Architecture in the Modernist Realm,” “This Brutal Word,” “Photoviz: Visualizing Information through Photography” and “The Course of Landscape Architecture: A History of our Designs on the Natural World, from Prehistory to the Present.”
“Min: The New Simplicity in Graphic Design”
Minimalism has informed some of the greatest graphic design in the history of the art form. It gave us the Helvetica font, de-cluttered web design, and it allowed graphic designers to focus with renewed diligence on the relationship between form and function. Today’s resurgence in minimalist graphic design―as creators move away from the ornate, decorative patterns that have saturated our visual culture for the past decade―calls for a closer look at the movement in its new, contemporary context.
“Min” showcases around 150 minimalist designers working across a wide range of formats and media―from independent magazines and album cover designs to corporate identity and branding. Three sections ― “Reduction,” “Geometry,” and “Production”―define key approaches to minimalism in its visual forms. Each section presents a range of contemporary works, all produced in the past three years. These are accompanied by exclusive interviews with leading practitioners and proponents of minimalist design that offer an in-depth look at their creative processes. Finally, essays tracing the evolution of minimalism in graphic design allow for a comparison of the first wave of minimalism in the 1960s to its renascent form today.
BASIC FACTS: “Min: The New Simplicity in Graphic Design” is written by Stuart Tolley. Published by Thames & Hudson: 1 edition. Release Date: May 3, 2016. Paperback; 288 pages; $45.00.
“Architects in Industrial Design”
“Architects in Industrial Design” presents the work of architects in the field of industrial design from the beginning of the 20th century up until today. It includes more than 400 works by approximately 100 architects presented in chronological order. Each work is given approximately one page with images and a small informative text.
The book is completed with biographies of the architects and an index of all the companies that still produce the works presented. “Architects in Industrial Design” includes classic and little-known works of contemporary, young practicing architects. Its aim is to offer a complete overview of the work of architects in the field of industrial design, while at the same time working as a catalogue of commercially available high quality, design products.
BASIC FACTS: “Architects in Industrial Design” is written by Domitris Kottas. Published by Links International, Ceg. Release Date: May 7, 2016. Paperback; 400 pages; $39.00.
“Living Roofs”
Rooftop gardens and terraces inject a lovely note of green into the cityscape and improve the microclimate as well. People grow their own vegetables or use grass and shrubs to frame an opulent lounge area or pool. “Living Roofs” showcases public and private rooftop gardens and terraces from around the world. You'll see everything from spectacular skyscraper penthouses and clever solutions for freestanding bungalows to park-like gardens on public buildings and urban farming projects.
BASIC FACTS: “Living Roofs” is written by teNeues. Published by teNeues. Release Date: May 15, 2016. Hardcover; 224 pages; $55.00.
“The Tale of Tomorrow: Utopian Architecture in the Modernist Realm”
The retro-futuristic epoch is one of the most visually spectacular in architecture's history. This book compiles radical ideas and visionary structures from all over the world. From exuberant master plans to singular architectural expressions, the rise of the utopian architectural movement in the 1960s and 1970s represents a critical shift in ideology away from mid-century traditionalism. This period shakes off the conformity and conventions of the 1950s in favor of a more experimental post-war agenda. Marked by groundbreaking reinterpretations of both the single-family house as well as more large-scale developments, the embrace of utopian and generally progressive thinking mirrored the cultural revolution of the times. Visionary voices longing for a fresh approach to architecture began appearing across France, Japan, the United States, and beyond.
“The Tale of Tomorrow” documents this prolific era in architecture― a time when anything felt possible as architects began to think further and further outside the box. This book focuses exclusively on built manifestations of utopian ideas. Rather than mixing together abstract theorists with practitioners, this book focuses on the tangible embodiments of such forward thinking. Highlighting well-known projects as well as the more obscure and offbeat, the collection of utopian approaches compiled here maintain their visual power and infectious optimism nearly half a century later.
BASIC FACTS: “The Tale of Tomorrow: Utopian Architecture in the Modernist Realm” is written by Sofia Borges (Editor), Sven Ehmann (Editor) and Robert Klanten (Editor). Published by Gestalten. Release Date: May 18, 2016. Hardcover; 400 pages; $68.00.
“This Brutal Word”
“This Brutal World” is a global survey of this compelling and much-admired style of architecture. It brings to light virtually unknown Brutalist architectural treasures from across the former eastern bloc and other far flung parts of the world. This book includes works by some of the best contemporary architects including Zaha Hadid and David Chipperfield as well as by some of the master architects of the 20th century including Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph and Marcel Breuer.
BASIC FACTS: “This Brutal Word” is written by Peter Chadwick (Artist). Published by Phaidon Press. Release Date: May 23, 2016. Hardcover; 224 pages; $49.95.
“Photoviz: Visualizing Information through Photography”
The stories told with graphics and infographics are now being visualized through photography. Photoviz shows how these powerful images are depicting correlations, making the invisible visible, and revealing more detail than classic photojournalism. Images are omnipresent in our digital age, but they’re worth a closer look. Many of them can tell us stories in new and surprising ways. Photoviz reveals how infographics and data visualization are currently impacting photography and points to innovative possibilities for the future.
Today, data is being visualized through photographic techniques such as long and multiple exposures and making a single image out of several different shots or using a 3D perspective is communicating insightful information. The work featured in Photoviz, to cite only a few compelling examples, makes invisible Wi-Fi fields visible, allows airport flight activity from a full day to appear as if it were happening at once, and illustrates the average selfie-taking behavior of an entire city.
BASIC FACTS: “Photoviz: Visualizing Information through Photography” is written by Nicholas Felton (Editor), Sven Ehmann (Editor) and Robert Klanten (Editor). Published by Gestalten. Release Date: May 25, 2016. Hardcover; 240 pages; $55.00.
“The Course of Landscape Architecture: A History of our Designs on the Natural World, from Prehistory to the Present”
In many ways the history of civilization is a history of humans’ relationship with nature. Starting from the dual inclination to clear land for cultivation and to enclose space for protection―the forest clearing and the walled garden―there emerges a vital and multifaceted narrative that describes our cultural relationship to, and dependence on the landscape.
Christophe Girot sets out to chronicle this history, drawing on all aspects of mankind’s creativity and ingenuity. In twelve chapters, he brings together the key stories that have shaped our man-made landscapes. Each chapter consists of a thematic essay that ties together the central developments, as well as a case study illustrated with specially commissioned photographs and detailed 3D re–creations showing the featured site in its original context.
BASIC FACTS: “The Course of Landscape Architecture: A History of our Designs on the Natural World, from Prehistory to the Present” is written by Christophe Girot. Published by Thames & Hudson. Release Date: May 31, 2016. Hardcover; 304 pages; $75.00.
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