POP: How Graphic Design Shapes Popular Culture

How does graphic design influence popular culture? And how does popular culture influence graphic design? What are the goals of design? Is it to sell? To package? To identify? To entertain? While these questions should be obvious to the practitioner, the answers are often elusive. They are also intimately tied to the role they play in the overall culture--in the popular scheme of cultural pursuit.

Through a collection of related essays addressing such areas as type as language, design objects, and popular iconography; decoration and decorum; advertising and art; and more, the notion of POP culture is viewed through the lens of graphic design and its affinities. This is the first book to stamp graphic design with the POP brand and analyze its role in the broader culture and the impact that it has on other art and entertainment.