5 Best Books on Graphic Design, selected by Steven Skaggs

Each month Choice faculty reviewers pick their favorites … books every undergraduate should read! Visit our Facebook page and join the discussion by telling us your favorite book on graphic design.
 
The Art of Looking Sideways, by Alan Fletcher.  Phaidon, 2001.
The Elements of Typographic Style, by Robert Bringhurst.  3rd ed.  Hartley & Marks, c2004.
Helmut Salden: Letterontwerper en Boekverzorger, edited by Katja Vranken.  Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010, 2003.
Hermann Zapf & His Design Philosophy: Selected Articles and Lectures on Calligraphy and Contemporary Developments in Type Design, with Illustrations and Bibliographical Notes, and a Complete List of His Typefaces; introduction by Carl Zahn.  Chicago: Society of Typographic Arts, c1987.
The Story of Graphic Design: From the Invention of Writing to the Birth of Digital Design, by Patrick Cramsie.  Abrams, 2010.

Steven Skaggs, graphic design, Hite Institute, University of Louisville, [email protected].  Author of Logos: The Development of Visual Symbols (Crisp Publications, 1994); Poems from Elsewhere (Arable, 2006); and Visual Design Semiotic Primer (available at http://stevenskaggs.net/SemioticPrimerContents.htm).