Book Review: Stylepedia

After listening to Millman's "Design Matters" with Steven Heller (Yes, I know I cite her way too much.. I should be her publicist), I picked up the book that Heller and his wife just released, titled: "Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and Conceits". The book cross references, in alphabetical order, all of the major styles of modern design as we know it. I've barely gone through reading through each single style, but even flipping through it, you can see how rich in content and how well thought out the book's idea is.

Designed using the beautiful thumb tabs, the book builds up as you flip through it with a pleuthora of amazing looks. The styles included range from the simple, the common, the complex, and the artist based. I was so overtaken with all that there was to learn, that I literally went in and had to post-it every single style that i thought I wanted to go over thoroughly first. That's how much information there is.

Some of my favorites among the many were: Krueger (Barbara Krueger's influence on design styles), Futurism, Dada, Simple, Heroism (Those fantastic old 50's war posters), Big Idea, and Art Deco.

Overall, I think everyone should pick this book up. If you're a fine artist, a video production major, an animator, or a designer, this book just deals with mostly styles. It'd be a great resource in any sense and will really make a difference in the way I research my projects from now on. Let me know what you guys think if you decide to pick it up.