sss
 
Back to Reviews
Book Reviews September 06

Designing Pornotopia: Travels in Visual Culture
Laurence King £17.95

Explicit sexual imagery has erupted in every medium and on every surface. While some react to it by pointing and laughing, hardly anyone has stopped to seriously consider its impact. Behind this phenomenon lies the normalization

of pornography, which along with the complete turnaround in social attitudes to it, has been one of the most momentous developments in contemporary life. In Designing Pornotopia, Rick Poynor explores recent advertising and design and the invasion of sexual imagery into everyday life, revealing how advertising walks the fine line between prudish and vulgar imagery.

200 trips from the counterculture
Thames & Hudson £19.95

Reviewed by David Humphries

This book consists of 200 pages taken from various underground titles from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies and provides an interesting insight into the networking of the Underground Press Syndicate (UPS).

It is a compendium of tear sheets from publications such as Oz, Actuel, The Berkeley Barb and the International Times. The yellowed pages of cheap printing stock, faithfully reproduced in this book, feature sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, politics, art, film and other subjects close to the hearts of the flower children. Much of the material retains its freshness, and some of the issues are still relevant today. The images are monochromatic, their simple colour usually added by an offset litho press.

Newspaper cut-outs, photo montages and bold graphic drawings (or a combination of all three), which are well suited to this type of basic reproduction, dominate the spreads and provide plenty of impact. This sort of imagery can be produced by artists and designers of varied abilities and training. The most important ingredient was something to say.

Dutch Graphic design
Thames & Hudson £24.95

This book offers a richly illustrated overview of the Netherlands' distinguished graphic design history, from 1890 to the present day. From the 'Nieuwe Kunst' at the turn of the 20th century through De Stijl and postwar graphics to the contemporary avant-garde, the book presents a feast of visual imagery that will delight all graphic designers, artists and historians of art and design.