DESIGN QUARTERLY no. 62
SIGNS AND SYMBOLS IN GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
Martin Krampen [Guest Editor]
Martin Krampen [author] and Peter Seitz [editor]: DESIGN QUARTERLY 62: SIGNS AND SYMBOLS IN GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION. Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1965. Original edition. Slim quarto. Saddle stitched thick printed glossy wrappers. 32 pp. Black and white illustrations throughout. Wrappers lightly worn, but a very good or better copy.
8.5 x 11 staple-bound magazine with 32 pages and approx. 50 black and white illustrations. From the author's profile: "Prof. Krampen has lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad, and has done extensive research and writing for subjects including: world road sign systems, classification of graphic symbols, the perception of apparent movement, industrial design and industrial organization, and forgetting and retention of pictorial material."
Includes work by George Nelson and Co., Karl Gerstner, J. Muller-Brockmann, Gottschalk & Krampen, Norman Ives, Doyle, Dane, Bernbach, Muriel Coopr, Otto Neurath, Tomas Maldonado and Gui Bonsiepe, Ernst Roch and Kenneth Hiebert among others.
- Information and Persuasion by Graphic Communication
- The Theoretical Study of Graphic Communication
- Special Problems Imposed by the Audience
- Conventionalized Picture Languages
- Applications of Theory: A Summary and Some Suggestions
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- The Author
Martin Krampen (Germany, b. 1928) educated at the famous Hochschule für Gestaltung, Ulm, Germany, provides a primer on the signs and symbols of visual communication. Examining aspects of visual perception and gestalt psychology, elucidating a semiotics of visual language, and documenting the cognitive challenges of conventionalized systems of pictograms such as ISOTYPE, Krampen concludes: “[The graphic designer] may come to realize that signs, symbols, and pictures are not mysterious: their appeal is not ineffable, nor is one picture worth a thousand words.”
Design Quarterly began as Everyday Art Quarterly, published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis starting in 1946. The editorial focus aimed to bring modern design to the masses through thoughtful examination of household objects and their designers. Everyday Art Quarterly was a vocal proponent of the Good Design movement (as represented by MoMA and Chicago's Merchandise Mart) and spotlighted the best in industrial and handcrafted design. When the magazine became Design Quarterly in 1958, the editors assumed a more international flair in their selection of material to spotlight.