The plans for the gigantic Monument to the Third International were completed in 1920 by Vladimir Tatlin, the Russian painter and visionary designer who was a key figure of Russian constructivism. Planned as the headquarters and monument of the Comin...

This catalogue illustrates each entry in the prestigious bookbinding competition held by Designer Bookbinders, one of the foremost bookbinding societies in the world. The Designer Bookbinders International Competition is being held at the Bodleian Li...

Matthew Boulton was an eighteenth-century designer, inventor, and industrialist, a consummate businessman, and co-founder of the influential Lunar Society. Now, on the bicentenary of his death, this book surveys his life and extraordinarily varied ac...

In 1957, Swiss typographer Max Miedinger came up with "Haas Grotesk". Renamed Helvetica after 1960, this typeface went on to become one of the world's most used typefaces ever. It embodies the myth of Sachlichkeit, propagated at the time by Swiss Typ...

Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. The balanced and neutral appearance of Helvetica forgoes a high degree of express...

The friendship between William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones began when they met as undergraduates in 1853 and lasted until Morris' death in 1896, despite their differences in temperament and in attitudes to political engagement. This friendship was...

The development of modern communication and information technologies like the Internet and globalization have not only changed access and spread of the available knowledge but also the speed of collecting. The author examines collections of knowledge...

Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) ranked among the most innovative furniture makers at the turn of the twentieth century. Praised by the international press and exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, his beautiful works grew out of an interestin...

Reaching an apogee of 6,000 members in the years just before the American Civil War, the Shaker movement was the most extensive, enduring, and successful utopian society ever established in America. Leaving Manchester in 1776 to avoid persecution, th...

How architects and engineers relate to one another has long been debated but never before addressed over a broad span of history. There are many controversial issues: about professional demarcation, about credit for design, about the value we attach...