Watching Words Move

by Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar

Words have the power to move. In 1962 a modest design studio created its own riff on that statement in the form of a small booklet of typographic brilliance, and changed forever how designers thought about the graphic potential of words. Decades later, the impact of watching words move is still felt. Never before had the idea been so lucidly and playfully expressed that type itself could speak, that word-forms carried their own implied visual meanings;...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811852148
• ISBN13: 9780811852142
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

I buy it for all design savvy friends

I loved this simple and short but ingenious book so much that now I buy it for all my friends who appreciate good design and good thought.

A delightful TYpoGrapHic wayzgoose

The obvious stocking filler for type and graphic folk. Brownjohn, Chermayeff and Geismar packed so much into this little book with one typeface (Standard Medium) in one size (forty-eight point) and one color (black) to produce an amazing collection of visual puns like NON-CONFORMISt or nO!se or qu"o"te or EXPEN$IVE. In 1962 I bought a copy of Typographica Magazine that included the original forty-eight page booklet, held into the mag by cord which ran through a small hole punched through the pages. I thought at the time it was a wonderful example of American design, exuberant and simple and in the same style as the work of Herb Lubalin (genius) Otto Storch (Art Director for McCall's magazine), Bill Golden (CBS) or Rudolph de Harak. There is though an extremely small difference from the original booklet and it is, interestingly, on the word spec-cif'i-cal-ly, the wrong font apostrophe is not at the same angle...just thought I would mention it! Thanks to Chronicle Books this lively little book will intrigue and provide an inward smile to a new bunch fans. ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.