- Art director of the New York Times Book Review and founder and co-chair of the School of Visual Arts, New York MFA/Design Program. He is the former editor of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design and author or editor of over 80 books on popular culture, graphic design history, and political art. His most recent books include The Graphic Design Reader, Allworth Press, The Education of a Design Designer, Allworth Press, and Counter Culture: The Allure of Mini-Mannequins, Princeton Architectural Press. His forthcoming books include: From Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Progressive Magazine Design of the 20th Century, Phaidon Press, Cuba Style: Graphics From the Golden Age of Design, Princeton Architectural Press, and Graphic Humor: The Art of Graphic Wit, Allworth Press.
Stories
Typographica Mea Culpa, Unethical Downloading
Essays by Steven HellerSteven Heller describes the guilty revelation experienced when he learned that typeface software licenses are sold for use on specific, not unlimited numbers of CPUs. He calls for the ethical treatment of type designers, i.e. respect for their copyrights.Walter Herdeg, editor and founder of Graphis
Essays by Steven HellerThe “epitome of a post-war Modernist”, Walter Herdeg, backbone of Graphis magazine, is appraised by Steven Heller.Advertising Arts: America Becomes Modern(istic)
Essays by Steven HellerA history and analysis of the role played by this American precursor to the graphic design magazine, which sought to bring progressive commercial graphic and industrial arts into the mainstream.The Object Poster:
Essays by Steven HellerWooden display types, Victorian chromolithography and the demise of Art Nouveau in the form of a poster for a German Match company in 1906...Graphic Design Magazines: Das Plakat
Essays by Steven HellerThe point-form story of a German dentist named Hans Josef Sachs and the magazine Das Plakat he founded on his love for posters. Responsible for the promulgation of early German advertising art abroad, his vast collection was confiscated by Goebbels for the Nazis’ collections and Sachs narrowly escaped the Holocaust. Steven Heller looks at the rise and fall of this significant early design periodical.Old Guns
Essays by Steven HellerIn 1999, Print magazine talked to 20 American design heroes and had them look at work from their halcyon days. Designers from Art Chantry to Massimo Vignelli discuss a piece of early work as a foil for Print’s ‘Designers Under Thirty’ section.