Our editor-picked collection of graphic design books spans the breadth of the medium – from the modernist optimism of postwar Britain to the forgotten vernacular of Italian print workshops; from Pentagram's half-century of brand identities to the artistry of crisp packets. What unites these books is a conviction that we share at Wallpaper*: that design is everywhere – in football crests and fonts, Instagram posts and Cold War logos, and in the ephemera pinned to a studio wall.
Nigel Cottier's Alphabet Playground is a visual celebration of letterforms taken to their most expressive and experimental extremes – an exploration of what happens when a designer gives letters room to play. This is a book for type enthusiasts, designers and anyone who believes the alphabet is far from exhausted as a creative medium.
1,000 Marks is 50 years of Pentagram's brand identity work distilled into a single volume. The comprehensive collection gathers 1,000 symbols and logotypes created by the world's biggest design consultancy from 1972 to the present, for clients ranging from multinational corporations to nonprofits, governments, start-ups and entire countries. Its name pays tribute to the enduring power of the humble mark – the graphic shorthand through which brands enter our collective consciousness.
This is the first book to seriously document British modernist graphic design as a distinct and cohesive movement – delving into an optimistic postwar era when designers saw their work as part of rebuilding society. The period was characterised by clean sans-serif type, dynamic grids and reductive imagery, and – the authors argue – a specific wit that sets it apart from its European counterparts.
This volume is dedicated to the art of pairing typefaces – which is part intuition, part knowledge, and this book covers both. Type Team explores 150 typeface combinations across 25 categories, from 'classical' and 'scholarly' to 'edgy' and 'vibrant'. Fifty typographic principles are woven throughout, illustrated with real examples. An invaluable reference for designers, typographers and font lovers who want to understand why certain combinations simply work.
This is a comprehensive chronicle of graphic design, gathering 500 of the world's greatest visual works in one generous volume. Spanning the 14th century to today, Graphic Classics covers everything from the Gutenberg Bible to Joy Division album art. Organised chronologically, with large images and detailed 300-word entries, this is an authoritative yet browsable design history.
For over a decade, Luca Lattuga has been keeping alive a forgotten chapter of Italian typographic history: the movable metal and wood display types produced in printing workshops between the 1920s and 1940s, which coexisted with prestigious foundry faces before fading from view. More than 100 specimens are catalogued and categorised here, revealing a distinctly Italian vernacular modernism that has, against the odds, survived.
Completed shortly before his death in September 2025, this quietly moving volume presents book designer John Morgan's personal selection of 31 volumes chosen as muses – selected not for literary merit alone but for colour, weight, feel, memory and mood. Each touched his practice in ways both obvious and oblique.
Andy Altmann has spent a career accumulating visual detritus – football cards, soap powder boxes, speedway flyers, sweet wrappers and bus tickets – a stash that began during his art school foundation year. By any conventional standard, most of it is bad design – or 'tat' – but each piece once had the magic that makes a graphic designer reach for it. This book is a chronicle of, and homage to, that lifelong haul.
A compact, comprehensive catalogue of the most ingenious and era-defining logos spanning industry, music, media and beyond. Thematic chapters unpick how text, imagery and ideas compress into a single symbol – and what makes certain marks stick. More than a definitive introduction, this is a philosophy of visual branding.
Jens Müller's survey is a compact but authoritative sweep through over a century of graphic design, arranging hundreds of global examples by decade from its 1890s origins to the present. Alongside the images, concise biographies profile key figures – Vignelli, Glaser, Scher, Sagmeister – and thumbnail timelines map movements. Part primer, part deep reference, this title illustrates graphic design's incontrovertible influence on how we see the world.
For those who crave the humanity of hand lettering in an age of digital slickness, this collection of work from over 100 artists is for you. Moving well beyond traditional calligraphy, today's practitioners build type from coffee grounds, watercolour and found materials. With concept sketches alongside finished pieces, The Art of Lettering is a rich document of a discipline reasserting the value of the hand in design.
Why does Manchester United's logo contain a devil? What's behind Valencia's bat? This guide unravels the design, symbolism and stories behind more than 200 club crests from 20 leagues. Each badge carries a history of identity, place, pride and sometimes controversy – drawing on influences from heraldic tradition to mid-century modernism, and revealing football's most iconic symbols as objects of graphic significance.
You didn't know you needed a 140-page deep dive into three decades of crisp packet design – but this lighthearted tome is an unlikely masterclass in vernacular graphics. Under the name Chris Packet, the author/collector has assembled an eccentric archive spanning Space Raiders, Discos, Frazzles and long-forgotten regional brands, unearthed from tunnels and bunkers before they're lost to posterity. The result is equal parts nostalgia hit and genuine appreciation of the typographic ingenuity that sat on Britain's food shelves for decades.
An in-depth study of Japanese layout design, this book identifies six major creative styles and 76 distinctive layout strategies, illustrated through the work of Japanese designers including Yoshihisa Shirai and Masayoshi Kodaira. Combining Western rational design tools with Eastern aesthetic sensibility, it offers an inspiring framework that prioritises precision, considered use of space and the quiet confidence of Japanese visual culture.
This Taschen collection captures American advertising during a decade of profound cultural upheaval. From the rise of social media and streaming to the dominance of celebrity endorsements and the emergence of wellness culture, the ads collected here reflect a nation caught between anxiety and escapism. Ten themed chapters span food, fashion, travel and automobiles – celebrating an era when advertising could still sell dreams.