Throughout the process of reading The Graphic Design Reader, an expansive and carefully assembled anthology from Teal Triggs and Leslie Atzmon, I wondered whether my linear approach was appropriate for the task of reviewing it. Anthologies are, after all, typically consulted piecemeal, so a sustained journey through 1,000 pages of material left a different impression of the field. In any case, I expect many essays in this collection eventually could be consulted individually online through the Bloomsbury Design Library—the publisher’s expanding online collection of design-related images, exhibition materials, e-books, articles, and soon lesson plans and bibliographic guides, available through institutional subscription.1 For better or worse, this represents a growing business model for academic publishing in general and design writing in particular. Triggs and Atzmon are accomplished graphic design scholars, practitioners, and educators; as such they are eminently qualified to assemble a graphic design anthology of this breadth. They have considered the landscape of existing Anglophone anthologies and distinguish their own by emphasizing its inclusion of newly commissioned work alongside previously published essays. The introduction lays out a series of intentions, premises, perspectives, and lenses through which to view the volume and graphic design as a field. The primary lens applied in this anthology is that of practice, which includes “methods for understanding audiences and addressing client problems through critical assessment, and particularly thinking through making” and “history, theory, and criticism” (1). The editors state at various points that the Reader does not offer up a canon or seek to define the field so much as provide material for critical reflection, discussion, debate, and inquiry. Although it is impossible to adequately summarize the ninety essays in this collection, I offer a cursory overview. They were initially written between 1898 and 2019, though overwhelmingly in the past three decades, and they address several centuries of graphic design practice but mainly focus on the past 100 years. The book is organized into seven parts, each with titled subsections. The essays in Part 1 (“History of Graphic Design and Graphic Design History”) consider how graphic design history should and should not be constructed and engaged, although by way of a limited demographic of authors. I was surprised that for the number of times postmodernism is invoked in this part, only Dick Hebdige addresses Fredric Jameson’s application of the term and therefore the dynamic relationship between graphic design and capitalism. Nevertheless, Part 1 captures how a significant portion of graphic design history has consisted of debates around the historical role and value of aesthetic evaluation. Part 2 (“Education and the Profession”) explores practical and thematic connections between graphic design education and its professional practice from a variety of perspectives, featuring autobiographical narratives alongside methodological analyses and reflections on curricula and pedagogy. Several authors in this Part, including Katherine McCoy and Elliott Earls, describe discrepancies between how graphic design is taught and how it is practiced professionally. Others, such as Damian and Laura Santamaria, see continuities. Part 3 (“Type and Typography”) offers a glimpse into the ideological underpinnings of typographic practice since the last century. Type is called “invisible” (Beatrice Warde) “experimental” (Peter Bil’ak), “dimensional” (J. Abbott Miller, Atzmon), and “electronic” (Jessica Helfand) among other descriptors, demonstrating how typographic forms and practices are not simply defined by particular technologies but work alongside and through them to construct cultural discourses and theories of communication. In this respect, there is a great deal of excellent work in this section, although it largely omits typographic histories, systems, and experiments outside of North American and European contexts. The essays in Part 4 (“Graphic Design, Critical Writing, and Practice”) address and model the integral role of writing in design, engaging frameworks drawn from multiple disciplines to theorize graphic design and reflect on the role and value of graphic

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The Graphic Design Reader，由 Teal Triggs 和 Leslie Atzmon 编辑（伦敦：Bloomsbury Visual Arts，2019 年）。ISBN 9781472526472，插图，精装本（135 美元）/平装本（48 美元），1,000 页（书评）

在阅读 The Graphic Design Reader（由 Teal Triggs 和 Leslie Atzmon 精心编排的详尽选集）的整个过程中，我想知道我的线性方法是否适合审查它的任务。毕竟，选集通常是零碎查阅的，因此持续浏览 1,000 页材料的旅程会给该领域留下不同的印象。无论如何，我希望最终可以通过 Bloomsbury 设计图书馆在线单独查阅该系列中的许多文章——该出版商正在扩大与设计相关的图像、展览材料、电子书、文章以及很快的课程计划和书目指南的在线收藏，可通过机构订阅获得。1 无论好坏，这代表了学术出版，特别是设计写作的不断发展的商业模式。Triggs 和 Atzmon 是有成就的平面设计学者、实践者和教育者；因此，他们非常有资格组装如此广泛的平面设计选集。他们考虑了现有英语选集的景观，并通过强调将新委托作品与以前发表的论文一起包含在内来区分自己的选集。引言列出了一系列意图、前提、视角和镜头，通过这些意图，可以将体积和平面设计视为一个领域。本选集中应用的主要镜头是实践，其中包括“通过批判性评估了解受众和解决客户问题的方法，尤其是通过制作思考”和“历史、理论和批评”（1）。编辑们在不同的地方指出，读者并没有提供经典或试图定义该领域，而是为批判性反思、讨论、辩论和探究提供材料。虽然不可能充分总结本集中的九十篇论文，但我提供了一个粗略的概述。它们最初是在 1898 年至 2019 年之间编写的，尽管绝大多数是在过去三十年中编写的，它们涉及几个世纪的平面设计实践，但主要集中在过去 100 年。本书分为七个部分，每个部分都有标题小节。第 1 部分（“平面设计史和平面设计史”）中的文章考虑了平面设计史应该和不应该如何构建和参与，尽管作者人数有限。令我惊讶的是，在这部分提到后现代主义的次数中，只有 Dick Hebdige 谈到了 Fredric Jameson 对该术语的应用，因此也谈到了平面设计与资本主义之间的动态关系。然而，第 1 部分描述了平面设计历史的重要部分是如何围绕美学评估的历史作用和价值进行辩论的。第 2 部分（“教育与职业”）从多个角度探讨平面设计教育与其专业实践之间的实践和主题联系，以自传式叙事以及方法论分析和对课程和教学法的反思为特色。本部分的几位作者，包括 Katherine McCoy 和 Elliott Earls，描述平面设计的教学方式与专业实践方式之间的差异。其他人，例如 Damian 和 Laura Santamaria，看到了连续性。第 3 部分（“字体和排版”）概述了自上个世纪以来排版实践的意识形态基础。字体被称为“隐形”（Beatrice Warde）、“实验性”（Peter Bil'ak）、“维度”（J. Abbott Miller、Atzmon）和“电子”（Jessica Helfand）以及其他描述词，展示了排版形式和实践的方式不是简单地由特定技术定义，而是与它们一起并通过它们来构建文化话语和传播理论。在这方面，本节有大量出色的工作，尽管它在很大程度上省略了印刷历史、系统、以及北美和欧洲环境之外的实验。第 4 部分（“平面设计、批判性写作和实践”）中的文章阐述并模拟了写作在设计中的整体作用、从多个学科中汲取的框架以将平面设计理论化并反思图形的作用和价值