If you’re a design writer, it’s hard not to let your cowering awe of Steven Heller impede your ability to write an unbiased review of this book. But what’s not to love about Stylepedia? It surpasses its genre as a quirky coffee table showpiece, and delivers a compendium of over 100 truly informative short essays on alphabetized topics that range from style periods (Art Deco, De Stijl) to makers (Ed Fella, Paul Rand) to manifestations (Food packaging, Teen Magazines). Topics certainly hit both the high and low ends of visual culture—let’s say ‘Vernacular’ because we know what that means from reading page 319—but, as the authors point out in the introduction, even those topics that fall outside of the canon of ‘good’ design are included because they meet the criteria of having made a meaningful and lasting impression on society. Hence, Tiger Beat.
Stylepedia gives the appearance of being effortlessly compiled, written, and designed, which of course is the result of nearly unmatched knowledge and professional skill. Heller, the author of an estimated 105 books on design (when the number of books you’ve written becomes cloudy, you’ve definitely hit your stride), has been the art director of the New York Times Book Review for over 33 years, is currently co-chair of the Designer as Author MFA at the School for Visual Arts, and has been a prodigious commentator on graphic design as a freelance writer and editor for the AIGA voice. Fili’s no slouch either; in addition to writing fourteen books with Heller, she runs her own studio in NY, has generated work that’s been canonized in the Library of Congress and Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, and is a member of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. So I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re going to trust anyone to put together a Stylepedia and not make it schlocky, trivial or gimmicky, these are probably your two safest bets.
The analysis in Stylepedia is concise and sophisticated, but not particularly over the head of any intelligent reader. Engaging history and relevant theory are mixed with the kind of opinionated, but right-on details that only a true expert can confidently deal out. Vast and usually impenetrable subjects like ‘Deconstruction’ (pg 108) are distilled into such clearly explained and illustrated examples that you now have no excuse to avoid the subject in your final thesis. Clarity is carried through the design of each entry: ample line space allows the words to breath and the ideas to appear fresh, even in a format that’s repeated over 100 times. Of course the problem with text this good is that it does the remarkable and dangerous job of making you feel that you are now somewhat of an expert for having read a mere 700-word entry. Try to remember that the format remains honest to it’s purpose; use the book as a jumping off point for further research, or simply try to remember key entries to make yourself seem smarter at networking events.
In graphic design, style is both the look and the content of a piece of work—if you dismiss it as veneer you fail to see one of the most potent methods for meaning to be absorbed in the social world. And you probably shouldn’t be a graphic designer. This book gives the subject its due, explaining through so many short essays that the strategy mass communication is in the look of its skin.
