The Moderns ― Midcentury American Graphic Design

In The Moderns, we meet the men and women who invented and shaped Midcentury Modern graphic design in America. The book is made up of generously illustrated profiles, many based on interviews, of more than 60 designers whose magazine, book, and record covers; advertisements and package designs; posters; and other projects created the visual aesthetics of postwar modernity. Some were émigrés from Europe; others were homegrown—all were intoxicated by elemental typography, primary colors, photography, and geometric or biomorphic forms. Some are well-known, others are honored in this volume for the first time, and together they comprised a movement that changed our design world.

Steven Heller, America’s leading critic and historian of graphic design, is the author or editor of more than 170 books on design and popular culture, an influential design educator at the School of Visual Arts, and a recipient of the Smithsonian National Design Award.

Greg D’Onofrio is a designer and educator, and cofounder of Kind Company and Display, a graphic design collection. Greg has curated, lectured, and authored essays on twentieth-century modern graphic design history. He teaches the history of graphic design at the School of Visual Arts.