Lars Müller is fascinated by the sans serif font. Following the highly successful Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface, published in 2005, the eponymous typeface has found even more fame with a documentary, demonstrating that there's a design-hungry audience out there, eager for the low-down on what many people simply take for granted.
Helvetica Forever: Story of a Typeface, also published by Müller, together with Victor Malsy, is the book for them. Beautifully designed, as one would expect, the book attempts to tackle the great paradox at the heart of Helvetica - how could a typeface designed for modest, almost invisible ubiquity, become such a well-known, almost iconic 'brand'.
Originally named 'New Haas Grotesk,' Eduard Hoffman's typeface became Helvetica, a name that was felt to help its international appeal. The Haas foundry never looked back, and the typeface became one of the foundation stones of 1960s design before becoming fully integrated into the digital era. Complete with reproductions of Hoffman's original design journals, this is the perfect book for design obsessives.
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KOYN Thai brings high-end flair to London's West EndFrom Samyukta Nair and Fabled Studio comes a new restaurant with food drawn from the length and breadth of Thailand
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Massimo Giorgetti’s new rug collection takes Milan’s 1960s metro system as a departure pointFashion designer Massimo Giorgetti has designed a rug collection for CC-Tapis inspired by curving metal tubes that run along metro station staircases
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Kingsley Re-Engineered brings the Range Rover Classic into the modern era with the new KSRA sophisticated retromod transforms the iconic original Range Rover into a thoroughly stylish and modern luxury SUV
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‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
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'I’m So Happy You Are Here': discover the work of Japanese women photographersSubtitled ‘Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now’, this new monograph from Aperture is a fascinating insight into a critically overlooked body of work
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How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy cultureIn his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
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‘Package Holiday 1968-1985’: a very British love affair in pictures‘Package Holiday’ recalls tans, table tennis and Technicolor in Trevor Clark’s wistful snaps of sun-seeking Brits
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‘Art Exposed’: Julian Spalding on everything that’s wrong with the art worldIn ‘Art Exposed’, Julian Spalding draws on his 40 years in the art world – as a museum director, curator, and critic – for his series of essays
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Marisol Mendez's ‘Madre’ unpicks the woven threads of Bolivian womanhoodFrom ancestry to protest, how Marisol Mendez’s 'Madre' is rewriting the narrative of Bolivian womanhood
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Photo book explores the messy, magical mundanity of new motherhood‘Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back’ by photographer Andi Galdi Vinko explores new motherhood in all its messy, beautiful reality
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Best contemporary art books: a guide for 2024From maverick memoirs to topical tomes, turn over a new leaf with the Wallpaper* arts desk’s pick of new releases and all-time favourite art books
