Area_2

nik.mercer — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:31:25 -0700

We can all agree that as time progresses, more and more people become either better at creating works of art or more aware and sensitive to "good design." Wherever one goes or whatever one does―from a shopping spree at the mall to a trip to the record store―that person is immersed by a world of designed objects, the quality of which only increases over time. One of Phaidon Press' many new releases, Area_2, sets out to bring sense and cohesion to the sprawling mass of nice-looking visuals that we find anywhere and everywhere today.

Websites like Manystuff only add to the noise and confusion; the Internet has made us all become more aware of the fact that more designers are working now than ever before, churning out more material―and at a speedier rate―than their predecessors, but it has not been especially helpful. We still can't aptly distinguish the junk from the gems; there's just too much to sift through, making it practically impossible to set oneself apart or get a grasp of what actually is worth online showcasing.

Phaidon Press invited ten curators to help construct Area_2: 100 Graphic Designers, 10 Curators with some spectacular results! The colossal volume makes sense of all the graphic design floating around in the ether and pushes forth a concrete idea of what makes the artists of the past five years featured in the book so great. "The graphic designers... embrace the technology of today and separate themselves from it, returning to handmade design in a fresh and unique way."

While the curators include some rather highfalutin internationally acclaimed names (Dan Nadel, founder of PictureBox Inc.; Keiichi Tanaami, a longstanding Japanese artists; Jan Middendorp, a writer for Eye, Typo, and Items as well as a consultant and editor of several typographic companies), nothing in the book comes off as oblique, overly conceptual, or too dense. First and foremost, Area_2 is an enjoyable read that will inspire professional graphic designers, amateur up-and-coming artists, and curious Average Joes alike. Each artist's section is accompanied by a complimentary explanation of why the curator chose the person or collective, and what is compelling about the work. While some of the selections may not bode well with all readers, it's par for the course to inject some "trendy" pieces into a book such as this one... it is vested with focusing on "100 of the World's Most Exceptional Graphic Designers to Have Emerged Over the Last 5 Years," after all! The practitioners collected in this 450-page volume are implicitly young and not necessarily developed and matured to a level where their stuff can be considered timeless. (Artists include Peter Bilak, Brian Chippendale, Bob van Dijk, Friends With You, James Jarvis, Non-Format, EYE Yamataka, Yokoland, and a myriad others.) That being said, Area_2 is easy to digest, easy to come back to time and time again, easy to keep digging through, and easy to love. It picks up where the first Area left off, with even more exciting results.

Area_2: 100 Graphic Designers, 10 Curators

$90.00

448 pages