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Design Category
Book design, 1999
Design firm
Shiffman Design (Santa Monica, California)
Collection
(2000) 50 Books/50 Covers of 1999
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Deep Design is critic Libby Lumpkin’s concise statement on the current state of art discourse. In nine observant, quirky and irreverently spirited essays, Lumpkin suggests that what appear to be deep theoretical problems of art are merely simple problems of design. Subjects include art histories of the Smiley Face, the Prohibition Symbol, Chance Art, New Mexico, the Show Girl, Feminist Art and the Liberal Arts. The design of this edition allows the reader to view the illustrations literally as bookends to the essays. Rather than using a traditional means of laying out text with illustrations, the pictures are instead placed at the front and back of the book, encapsulated within 12-page, four-color signatures, allowing the essays to be read without the interruption of pictorial language or color reference. The frontis to each essay is a visually rhythmic, typographic interpretation of one specific quote chosen to accompany each essay.