Steven Heller

From cartoons to the graphic novel, from humour to super-heroes, comics are the world's most popular form of illustration. What we rarely see is the thinking – the image-and-word play, narrative sequencing, or just plain doodling – that leads to fully formed visual ideas and stories. Comics Sketchbooks presents the private notebooks of more than 80 of the planet's most inventive, innovative and successful...

Low-cost and mass-producible, stencil type is the world’s most universally used style, seen on everything from bridges to bags, from street signs to packaging. And because they are an affordable means of mass communication, stencils are often employed by populist, rebellious and street-art movements. Hundreds of international examples, chosen from the late 19th century to the 20th, are brought together...

Since being introduced in the 19th century, when they were considered the bastard cousins of more refined serif types, slab serif typefaces have become ubiquitous. Prized for their bold visual impact and versatility, they are used on a broad variety of demonstrative communications, from posters and newspapers to product packaging. Slabs come in many iterations and are recognized as a face with many...

Gastronomy meets graphics, in this irresistible collection of American menus from the mid-19th century to the 1980s. Not only an excellent insight into our evolving eating habits, this lineup of some 800 designs also serves as a history of graphic styles, designed to entice, excite, and titillate our palates over the years.