Book Brew

Designer Todd Oldham and writer Kiera Coffee have outdone themselves with their mega-monograph on Alexander Girard, new from Ammo Books. The product of nearly four years of research and, at 672 pages, an innovative scheme of printing and binding, this coffee table book is a must for any design lover. Oldham was granted exclusive permission to sift through the fastidiously kept archives of Girard (1907-1993), who is best known for his folk art-infused textiles for Herman Miller but also designed everything from buildings to typography. "I'd estimate that 90 percent of the work in the book hasn’t been seen before," Oldham told us recently. "Wait 'til you see the stuff from his early design career, in the '20s." And take a closer look at the image credits: Many of the archival photos were taken by frequent Girard collaborator Charles Eames.

"Apple Computer, Inc. has never developed an entirely new electronic product: it did not invent the computer or the MP3 player or even the cell phone," writes Ina Grätz in her introduction to Apple Design (Hatje Cantz). "That these devices from the company are nevertheless considered to be among the most innovative of our time can be explained above all on the basis of their product design." The new book features more than 200 examples of Apple designs by Jonathan Ive and his team, from the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh to the latest iPad. Each object is pictured from multiple angles and examined in detail as part of a broader exploration of Apple's approach to industrial design, production, materials (including pioneering applications of translucent plastic and aluminum) and, of course, marketing.

Celebrated comics artist Daniel Clowes (Wilson, Ghost World) has a big year ahead of him, with an exhibition of his work opening this spring at the Oakland Museum of California and an accompanying mega-monograph. In the meantime, treat yourself to The Death-Ray, freshly reissued by Drawn & Quarterly. It's Clowes' complex and darkly comic take on the superhero genre, with a teen outcast thrust into the role of ray gun-wielding masked avenger. "The costume is something I made up when I was 15 or 16, and the very basis of the story -- a skinny kid who lives with his grandparents and has a ray gun -- is something I was trying to write back then," Clowes has said. "Thankfully I never got it together. I would have really embarrassed myself."

Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss and his staff once assembled a database of 20,000 symbols that served as raw material for the Symbol Sourcebook, first published in 1972 with a wacky foreword by Buckminster Fuller. The seminal reference has been updated for the 21st century with Symbol (Laurence King), Angus Hyland and Steven Bateman’s impossible-to-put-down visual dictionary of graphic icons and logos. The 1,300 examples that made it into the book are grouped according to their visual characteristics, including circles, crosses, stripes, fruit and eyeballs. "Arranged this way, the symbols are essentially isolated so that the effectiveness of their composition and impact can be assessed without distraction,” explains Hyland in the book's introduction, "and so that the reader can enjoy them as a pictorial language in their own right.”

In search of the perfect holiday gift for youngsters mesmerized by the Food Network and Top Chef? Fire up their imagination with Doodle Cook (Phaidon), a collection of 17 "art-recipes" created by art director-turned-artist Hervé Tullet. Aimed at ages five and up, the step-by-step doodle book teaches children to be creative with shapes and color as they draw dishes such as "Scribble Delight" and "Dot Stew." Even grownups may be tempted to try their hand at filling an empty plate with a thousand-layer cake or dipping into a jar of "Magic Marmalade." We suggest serving up this gift with a side of crayons or colored pencils.

Behold the power of pictures in a new edition of Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual that features colorful, witty illustrations by Maira Kalman. Out this month from Penguin, the book's original set of "simple rules for eating healthily and happily" have been supplemented with fresh introductions and 19 new morsels of advice, such as "Place a bouquet of flowers on the table and everything will taste twice as good." And, while there are plenty of fresh veggies and farm scenes to admire, Kalman's signature way with pastry is featured in such rules as "Treat treats as treats" and "Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself," which is matched with a Hostess cupcake.