Paula Scher

A larger-than-life figure in the design community with a client list to match, Paula Scher turned her first major project as a partner at Pentagram into a formative twenty-five-year relationship with the Public Theater in New York. This behind-the-scenes account of the relationship between Scher and "the Public," as it's affectionately known, chronicles over two decades of brand and identity development and an evolving creative process in a unique "autobiography of graphic design."

A look beyond blueprints and computers into the art and science of design, showcasing great designers from every discipline whose work shapes our world.

An excellent outlook into graphic design, past and present! The book that turned designers on to reading is back, chock full of new stories about the graphic icons and idols of today's design culture. As witty and to the point as ever, the more than 125 thought pieces - 30 of them brand new - offer a vast taste of the aesthetic, political, historical, and personal issues that move today's global design community and fans, organized into eight thematic categories - persuasion, media, language, identity, information, iconography, style, and commerce.

An outspoken voice in the world of graphic design for more than twenty years, Paul Scher has developed a worldwide reputation for her bold, modern graphics and her incisive critiques of the design profession.

"Instant Replay" itself kicks off with an "American Top 40" peppy countdown and boogies its way through an ode to rolling over in the clover that's as minty and mildly abrasive as toothpaste. Hartman, one of popular music's undersung utility infielders, sculpted his disco breakthrough with the same intricacy as Seymour Chwast's phantasmagoric album cover, but his fondness for real live percussion, room ambiences, and endless good-time monkeyshines set the finished work apart from the chilling and provocative flesh-against-machine conundrums posed by Donna Summer's work with Giorgio Moroder. His unapologetic love of show tunes with top-hat-and-a-cane swagger shines through the 11-minute-plus "Countdown/This Is It," where the mastermind chases Blanche Napolean through an obstacle course of sometimes-harmonized scat singing in between spidery sax lines from the songwriter's old boss, Edgar Winter.

Helvetica is about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture. It looks at a single typeface—one that, for better or worse, has dominated the graphic arts world since its creation in 1957—in a conversation about the way type affects our lives. The documentary explores urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and offers a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.