IngentaConnect Philip Meggs and Richard Hollis: Models of Graphic Design History

Author: Drucker, Johanna

Source: Design and Culture, Volume 1, Number 1, March 2009 , pp. 51-77(27)

Abstract:

The field of graphic design history was shaped by Philip Meggs's pioneering 1983 publication of A History of Graphic Design. With Richard Hollis's Concise History of Graphic Design, Meggs's book has continued to serve as a primary text for reference and teaching. This article considers the intellectual foundations of Meggs's and Hollis's approach by reflecting on the way each author models the fundamental elements of their study: scope and concepts of history, ideas of the designer and the definition of graphic design. By exposing the assumptions on which each of these fundamental texts is based, this article offers a provocative opportunity for the field of graphic design history to make a methodological (as well as content-specific) contribution to study of visual culture. Drucker examines each book within the traditions of scholarly and critical publishing on which it drew, placing Meggs and Hollis within the discourses of graphic arts and visual communication: languages of form, history of print and typography, practice of design, history of advertising and poster art among others. The parameters on which the field of graphic design history is conceived, Drucker argues, will shape the way we understand our work as practitioners, scholars, and critics.

Keywords: GRAPHIC DESIGN; HISTORY; MEGGS; HOLLIS; VISUAL COMMUNICATION; GRAPHIC ARTS; CRITICAL THEORY

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.2752/175470709787375724