design::writings
emDesign designwritings photolog portfolio resume genealogy team in training dr leslie project
thoughts and observations about design, information architecture and design history
« Creating a framework | Main | Ephemera Madness »

Tuesday 04|23|02
The Russian Avant Garde Book

The MOMA does it again. A beautiful flash piece explores the depth and breadth of the Russian Avant Garde book.

The site is divided into three major sections:

A Slap in the Face of Public Taste 1910 - 1924
Transform the World 1916 - 1933
Building Socialism 1924 - 1934

There are tons of examples in each section of books shown with mulitple spreads and enlargements. The interface is easy to use and allows for exploration as well as linear reading of the historical information. There are explanations of terms, full bibliographic information about the book with listings of the author and designer.

In the Reading Room section - there are three books offered. Selecting one of them shows stills that you can page through as if you are reading the entire book one page at a time. This is a great idea to show flow of spreads, scale and length of the book. I wish the images were larger though for more detail.

One of the more interesting parts of the site is the Book index. Shown in various forms, the books are arranged on a time line with rollovers of mini covers that show a larger version on the right with it's bibliographic data. The time line has some bold call outs of political events that happened which in turn affected the work of the book authors and designers. In addition there is a pulldown with a complete list of all the book authors and another that lists all the publishers. Too bad there isn't one listing all the designer/artists as well since not all the authors were designers. This is a very innovative way to show a large matrix of information in a small amount of space. It is very beautiful, useful and usable.

This is a design history goldmine.

Posted by erin at 08:38 AM | in History

EM Design is home to the resume and portfolio of Erin Malone.
site updated every now and then :: copyright 1995-2020 Erin K. Malone
view by category
AIGA
Amazon
AOL
Books
Community
Conference Review
Conferences
Criticism
El Lissitzky
Event
Graphic Design
Herbert Bayer
History
Information Architecture
Information Design
Interaction Design
Magazines
Patterns
People
Sites of Note
Techniques
Theory
Timelines
Typography
User Centered Design
William Golden
Yahoo!

view by month
February 2008
August 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
December 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
April 2001
March 2001
February 2001

articles
DUX—Five Lessons Learned

Coloring Outside the Lines

Modeling the Creative Organization

Coming of Age

Talking With Jesse James Garrett

The Tool Makes the (Wo)man

AIGA Experience Design Summit #5 - Recap

AIGA Experience Design - past, present and future: An interview with Terry Swack and Clement Mok

Summit Beginnings: Saturday

Chicken Run: Summit Closing: Sunday

design history articles
Foreseeing the future: The legacy of Vannevar Bush

Learning from the Powers of Ten