Over the last few weeks I've been making my way through Steven Heller's latest book POP (published by Allsworth Press), or as it's sub-titled, How Graphic Design Shapes Popular Culture. A collection of grouped essays that sets out to examine how popular culture and graphic design influence one another.
First of all, I'd like to make it clear, I really liked it. It was a great read and packed full of interesting, if quite ephemeral, US-biased, pithy observations. Somehow, and don't ask me how, I've managed to avoid Heller's writing (some feat bearing in mind his prevalence in this business) and I really enjoyed seeing things through his eyes.
But a little way in something started to bug me. POP's sub-title, to me, pitches the book high. The blurb on the back backs this up and the press release that came with it continues, describing the book as a "…roadmap to understanding broader culture". POP reminded me, very much, of Bieruit's superb (and unpretentiously titled) 79 Short Essays on Design but while that collection of essays made no claim to be anything other than a collection of essays I became increasingly uncomfortable and unconvinced about Heller's bolder theme. This actually really annoyed me.
The funny thing was I persevered and it dawned on me why; I was enjoying the damned thing. To start with, the collected essay format is great; snippets of graphic ephemera, each taking little more than ten minutes at a time fits into my lifestyle perfectly (it occurred to me that this was the perfect book for the graphic designer's smallest room). Then of course, there's Heller's skill as a writer and design spectator; to be able to see something small and recognise its larger implications (his essay on the pavement measles gum problem in New York, for example resonated).
But I could have really done without the rather pompous premise. The grand dressing up of what felt more like a miscellany of memoiric observations. If you can get over that (like I did in the end) you'll probably enjoy Heller's design-view.