Essential Graphic Design Reading

Japanese blog, Ping Mag, have put together a comprehensive review of the best graphic design books money can buy. So if you are a graphic designer, learning to be a graphic designer or just have an interest in graphic design, you could do a lot worse than pick up one of the books suggested. Ping Mag say:

“The education of graphic designers is often a haphazard process. A number of designers working today came to their positions without formal design education. Undergraduate design education often leaves much to be desired.

“I understand my place in history a little bit better because of these texts – they helped inform both my work and my attitude toward my profession. Legitimation is a tricky thing, but analyzing your profession from a viewpoint of being part of a developing cultural and historical practice will help heaps.”

The books they suggest are:
1. A History of Graphic Design by Philip Meggs
2. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
3. Looking Closer I-III, Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typography, Graphic Design History, Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design, The Education of a Typographer
4. Design Writing Research by Ellen Lupton & J. Abbott Miller
5. Stop Stealing Sheep by Erik Spiekermann and E.M. Ginger
6. Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte
7. Josef Müller-Brockmann: A Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design by Lars Müller
8. Jan Tschichold: A Life in Typography by Ruari McLean
9. Unjustified Texts: Perspectives on Typography by Robin Kinross
10. Type and Typography by Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton and Oubunshotai by Akira Kobayashi