The biggest (and best) book of Art Deco posters (5/5)

Above The cover without the jacket

This surely has to be the definitive book on Art Deco posters. With 340 in color and large on the page, I doubt if anyone will publish anything better, though as William Crouse says in a short essay about poster collecting it does not include movie, political and Russian ones.

The ten chapters in the book look at poster art around the world from 1919 to 1939. I think the best ones involve movement in some form: aviation; autos and racing; railways; liners. Speed seems the ideal subject to bring out the creative best using vibrant colors, strong graphic shapes and sans typography. It'll be no surprise that Cassandre has the most entries in the index -- thirty-one.

A thing that surprised me and it's really one of the strengths of the book is the very comprehensive captions. So, as well as large posters you can read a lot about the artist/designers and the companies that commissioned the work. The author really has done a huge amount of research to pull all this detail together and nicely, here and there, mono photos are included to tie in with what the text is saying.

The production is as impressive as the contents. A tip of the hat to book designer Russell Hassell who created a simple, elegant presentation that lets each poster work, clean typography too. The spread chapter openers are particularly attractive with each left-hand page using four upright strips, butted together, taken from posters in that chapter. A surprise was finding four fold-out pages, one of which has three beautiful Lester Beall posters created in 1936 for the Rural Electrification Administration.

As I've said already, I doubt there will be a better, more comprehensive book on Art Deco posters than this one. 

A stunning visual record of a great American design team (5/5)

Another Eames book worth checking out is The world of Charles and Ray Eames (ISBN 978 0847847655)

I've always enjoyed looking through this book because of the editorial format, It reveals the work of Charles and Ray from the perspective of the year it was created. Starting in 1941 with their experimental molded plywood seating and running right through to 1984 with a teak and leather sofa for Herman Miller's Swiss company Vitra.

The creative output for each year is revealed with captioned photos and graphics (over 3500 with plenty in color) and an essay about the work. Nicely there is a list of all the people in the Eames office who worked on each product. It's possible to follow the couple's initial work on molded plywood then into toys, graphics, architecture, exhibition design, books and short educational films but year after year they created seating designs for Herman Miller.

The book is incredibly comprehensive (though it lacks an index) and handsomely designed by John and Marilyn Neuhart, which I think adds to its appeal.

 REVIEW NOTE Many of the pages in the book are devoted to the short films Charles and Ray created, you can get thirty-five of these on a wonderful six DVD box set 'The Films of Charles & Ray Eames' (ASIN B0009S2K92) they are available individually but cost a lot more than the box set.