A century of graphics

Chinese Graphic Design in the 20th Century

We look to the US or Europe or even South America for reference or inspiration but things are changing. This book shows us what our ‘new masters’ were looking at, in their everyday lives, for the last 100 years.

Authors Scott Minick and his partner Jiao Ping are well positioned to undertake this task, having worked as graphic designers in the US, France and Hong Kong. We don’t immediately associate China with commercial advertising so this book throws up some interesting surprises. There are 285 illustrations, 150 in colour, dating back to the early 1900s with the final illustration created in 1989, a poster protesting against the massacre in Tiananmen Square. First published in hardback in 1990 it’s now re-launched in paperback – it amazes me that they did not update the book to include what’s happened in the last 20 years.