I'm afraid I'm a sucker for these Taschen Icons books, which are cheap and, well, generally pretty ok. This is basically a big list of graphic designers, with bits of their work and a little text from each. I flicked through it and recognised a few of my favourite graphic designers, so I bought it.
It's not great. Or rather, going through in more detail, I really didn't find any new designers which were particularly inspiring. The accompanying text is generally surprisingly uninteresting. If you look at most of the work in detail, it... doesn't really do much.
The book is not a complete disaster, even if the message it provides accidentally is that there appears to be little strength in depth, in terms of interesting, innovative graphic designers - despite this, flicking through it lightly can be quite fun. It looked good in the shop, and if you just refer to it at that kind of level, with the occasional flick through for visual ideas, if not substance, I reckon it can work.
Posted 2009-03-15.