"The History of Graphic Design: 40th Ed." by Jens Müller and Julius Wiedemann (TASCHEN) is a comprehensive, condensed visual chronicle covering 130 years of design evolution from 1890 to the present. The 512-page, multilingual hardcover features yearly spreads, detailed industry profiles, and seminal works, offering a budget-friendly alternative to the original two-volume set. For more details, visit
Whether you read it as a PDF on your morning commute or flip through the heavy paper while sipping coffee on a Sunday, this book is required reading. It teaches us that to design the future, you must first understand the poster.
Thematic Coverage: Topics range from the origins of posters and corporate identity to the radical shifts brought by desktop publishing and the digital age. the history of graphic design 40th ed pdf
The 40th Anniversary Edition of The History of Graphic Design
In the world of design publishing, few titles carry the weight of Jens Müller’s The History of Graphic Design. When Taschen released the 40th Anniversary Edition—a compact, accessible version of the original two-volume magnum opus—it wasn't merely a reprint. It was a canonization. The very existence of a “40th edition” (referencing the original 2017 publication’s anniversary, not 40 print runs) signals that graphic design has finally shed its reputation as commercial ephemera and claimed its place alongside fine art and architecture. "The History of Graphic Design: 40th Ed
Taschen is a legacy print publisher. While they have eBook versions of many titles, the 40th Edition is often intentionally kept in print-only or locked proprietary formats (like their own app-based reading system) to preserve the tactile experience. The book is an object. The color of a vintage 1920s poster looks different on a backlit iPhone screen versus the coated paper of the book.
condenses 130 years of history into a single, high-quality 512-page hardcover. It’s not just a collection of pretty pictures; it’s a chronological timeline that maps out the creative field’s most pivotal moments from 1890 to the present day. It teaches us that to design the future,
However, the irony is sharp. The History of Graphic Design is, in its physical form, a protest against the ephemerality of the screen. The paper is matte to prevent glare; the binding is sewn, not glued, so it lies flat. To scan and torrent this book is to turn a designed object back into raw data—the very flattening that early digital designers warned against.
In an era dominated by AI prompts, UI/UX flows, and motion graphics, it’s easy to forget that every interface you love traces its lineage back to ink, paper, and a radical idea. For decades, one book has served as the anchor for that lineage: Jens Müller’s The History of Graphic Design.
