
Lettering Large: Art and Design of Monumental Typography
By Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic
Big type used to be known as ‘Supergraphics,’ a high visibility offshoot from late period modernism when the building started evolving into a billboard. But where the Supergraphic genre was brash and commercial, the more artistic expressions of big scale type design are rarely chronicled. Heller and Ilic’s new monograph, Lettering Large, corrects the balance, assembling a huge overview of installations, inscriptions and artworks that use the power of the printed work to make their point. Whether letters are cut, carved, painted or punched, the book looks at ways in which typography and the built (and natural) environments have come together, with new works supported by plenty of historical precedents.
Published by The Monacelli Press, $45
Writer: Jonathan Bell