Pentagram – Compendium

If the previous book felt a little lightweight, Compendium weighs in for the defence. Big, wide, fat and bright red this volume covers the period up to 1993.

Quite the interesting cut off date, as this is a distinctly pre-digital. Sure, there’s lots of desktop typesetting of the highest quality, but the world this work lives in is still unchanged, unconnected.

It’s difficult to condense the contents of this book into a couple of montages – there is loads of it, and some decent sized essays by the partners and others to accompany the really good quality images. The number of partners (including, briefly, Peter Saville) has clearly increased, as has the amount of US based work.

This big book reflects a busy, big, global design agency. First editions are quite expensive used, while second editions seem much cheaper.