Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this text, 25 designers and educators examine how graphic design is taught, learned and practised. In interviews with ten successful designers, including Milton Glaser, Jessica Helford, Paula Scher, Michael Bierut and David Carson, the author attempts to discover how they acquired their knowledge of design and how they have translated it into practice in their careers. The book presents model design-education curricula for both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. ix)
• 1 How We Learn What We Learn
• Education in an Adolescent Profession (p. 3)
• Raising the Bar for Higher Education (p. 13)
• Liberal Arts Is Old News (p. 19)
• Graphic Design Education as a Liberal Art: Design and Knowledge in the University and the "Real World" (p. 22)
• Liberal Arts and Graphic Design: Six Cautionary Questions (p. 33)
• Anxious about the Future? (p. 38)
• That Was Then: Corrections & Amplifications (p. 41)
• Catching Up with the Past: Shifting the Pedagogical Paradigm (p. 55)
• Legacy of a 1960s Credo (p. 57)
• Graphic Design Family Values (p. 63)
• What Is "Professional" about Professional Education? (p. 66)
• Emptying the Spoon, Enlarging the Plate: Some Thoughts on Graphic Design Education (p. 74)
• Design Rockism (p. 81)
• From Form to Context: Teaching a Different Type of Design History (p. 84)
• Principles Before Style: Questions in Design History (p. 89)
• The Case for Critical History (p. 92)
• Putting Criticism into Critique (p. 98)
• Remaking Theory, Rethinking Practice (p. 102)
• Talking Theory / Teaching Practice (p. 109)
• Writing Now: Journalism, Criticism, Critical Journalism (p. 116)
• Circling the Desert: The Illusion of Progress (p. 125)
• What This Country Needs Is a Good Five-Year Design Program (p. 128)
• Distinctive Opportunities (p. 131)
• What's Right with Design Education and Wrong with the "Real World"? (p. 133)
• Experience Versus Education (p. 136)
• Traversing Edge and Center: A Spatial Approach to Design Research (p. 141)
• The Problem with Problem Solving (p. 145)
• Ricochet Critique: Improvisation in Design Teaching (p. 148)
• Making Connections (p. 151)
• Self-Taught Teacher (p. 153)
• Hybrid Teaching: From Practitioner to Professor (p. 157)
• An Instructor of Concern (p. 160)
• Memory, Instinct, and Design: Beyond Paul Rand's "Play Principle" (p. 163)
• Some Things Change ... (p. 168)
• The Last Slide Show (p. 172)
• Design Interactive Education (p. 175)
• Motion Literacy (p. 181)
• Computers Don't Speak, Type Does (p. 184)
• Writing: The Future of Digital Media (p. 189)
• Starting from Zero: Teaching Writing to Designers (p. 192)
• Is Learning Stealing? (p. 197)
• Graphic Authorship (p. 200)
• The Blogucation of a Graphic Designer (p. 210)
• The Designer as Producer (p. 214)
• History with Attitude: A Subjective Tour of Studies in American Graphic Design Education (p. 220)
• Tear It Down (p. 225)
• How We Teach. How We Learn What Is Taught (p. 229)
• Graphic Design Curricula: Visualizing Design Processes and Skills (p. 232)
• Visual Literacy: The College Course (p. 236)
• Worth a Thousand Words ... (p. 238)
• Believing Is Seeing (p. 240)
• 2001: A Design Odyssey (p. 243)
• Be Selfish (p. 251)
• In Praise of Doubt (p. 253)
• Learning through a Collaborative Project: A Case Study in Visual Communication (p. 255)
• A Collage Education (p. 259)
• What Can Students Learn from Studying Misinformation? (p. 262)
• Have Sign, Will Travel: Cultural Issues in Design Education (p. 264)
• Searching for a Black Aesthetic in American Graphic Design (p. 269)
• For the Sake of Humanity: Teaching Cross-Cultural Design with Empirical Inquiry (p. 274)
• Maximize the Message: Tailoring Designs for Your Audience in a Multicultural Era (p. 279)
• Who's Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf? (p. 284)
• Design Studies for a New Doctorate (p. 287)
• 2 How We Teach What We Teach
• Graphic Design as Cognitive Artifact (p. 297)
• History Theory and Undergraduate Education (p. 301)
• Hyperarchitexture: Marked Typography and the Hypertextual Landscape (p. 308)
• Visual Literacy (p. 313)
• Designing with Self-Authored Text (p. 318)
• Off the Page and Into the Streets: Communication and Activism (p. 323)
• Green Graphic Design Seminar (p. 329)
• Introduction to Designing with Movement and Sound/Designing in Time and Space (p. 335)
• Contributors (p. 341)
• Credits (p. 351)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Heller (School of Visual Arts) is an accomplished author and editor of books in graphic design. This new edition (1st ed., 1998), however, is not a clear improvement on the original. Although some 40 essays have been added, only a few meet the quality of those from the first edition, of which all but three have been reprinted. The most notable additions are contributions by Kenneth Hiebert ("Legacy of a 1960s Credo"); Meredith Davis ("What Is 'Professional' about Professional Education?"); Richard Hollis ("Principles before Style"); Andrew Blauvet ("Remaking Theory, Rethinking Practice"); Marty Neumeier ("Who's Afraid of the Big Brand Wolf?"); and Heller's own "The Case for Critical History." Sacrificed in this edition is the section "How I Learned What I Learned," consisting of interviews with Milton Glaser, April Greiman, and Michael Vanderbyl, among other prominent designers. The section "How I Teach What I Teach" is retained in its original form, despite its having been expanded into another Allworth book in 2003, Teaching Graphic Design: Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Graduate and Undergraduate Program, ed. by Heller. Acquire as a supplement rather than as a replacement for the original. ^BSumming Up: Optional. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through graduate students; professionals. E. K. Menon Purdue University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Steven Heller is editor of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design and the chair of the MFA design department at the School of Visual Arts. He is the author or editor of more than seventy books on graphic design, and he is a contributor or contributing editor to nearly 25 magazines, including Print, U&lc, Eye Magazine, Communications Arts, ID magazine, Graphis, Design Issues, and Mother Jones. Since 1986 he has been senior art director of the New York Times, which he first joined as an art director in 1974. From 1967-1973, he served as art director for numerous publications, including Interview magazine, The New York Free Press, Rock Magazine, Screw magazine, Mobster Times, Evergreen Review, and the Irish Arts Center.



He was awarded three design grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, in 1986,1988, and 1990. In 1996, he received a Special Educators Award from The Art Director's Club of New York. He has been the curator of ten design exhibitions, including "The Art of Satire" at the Pratt Graphics Center and "Art Against War" at the Parsons School of Design. Since 1986, he has directed "Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design," an annual symposium at the School of Visual Arts. He lives in New York.