Work from California
Moravian Gallery, 2012
Paperback, 64 pages, $5

Graphic Design faculty member Jon Sueda curated the exhibition this catalogue documents, and edited and designed the book. It features the work of numerous exceptional graphic designers who are based in California and make work that directly interprets or reflects upon California as subject matter. The featured designers include CCA faculty members Bob Aufuldish, Jeremy Mende, Martin Venezky, Eric Heiman, Christopher Simmons, Emily McVarish, Geoff Kaplan, Brett McFadden, and Scott Thorpe, and recent alumnus James Edmondson. Graduate Design faculty member Megan Lynch also contributed interviews to the publication. The show took place at the 25th International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno in the Czech Republic in 2012.

To order the book, please email marie.pazderkova@moravska-galerie.cz.

California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way
MIT Press, 2011
Hardcover, 360 pages, $60

Fashion Design and Visual Studies faculty member Melissa Leventon contributes the essay "Distinctly Californian: Modernism in Textiles and Fashion" to this catalogue, which accompanied a major exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the first comprehensive examination of California's mid-century modern design. The book includes 350 images (most in color) of furniture, ceramics, metalwork, architecture, graphic and industrial design, film, textiles, and fashion, and 10 incisive essays that trace the rise of the California design aesthetic, from specific design influences and innovations in solid-color commercial ceramics to inspirations from Mexico and Asia, new schools for design training, new concepts about leisure, and the conversion of wartime technologies to peacetime use.

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here
PM Press, 2012
Paperback, 300 pages, $20

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad -- the historic center of Baghdad bookselling -- wounding more than 100 people and killing more than 30. This anthology, long in preparation, begins with a historical introduction to al-Mutanabbi Street and includes the writing of Iraqis as well as a wide swath of international poets and writers who were outraged by this attack. The publisher PM Press, is local, and the book is coedited by the San Francisco bookseller Beau Beausoleil with the poet Deema Shehabi. Steve Dickison (Writing and Literature faculty), is one of many contributors.

Exploring the question “Where does al-Mutanabbi Street start?,” the book looks at both communities and nations, seeking to show the commonality between a small street in Baghdad and other individual cultural centers. Chapters examine al-Mutanabbi Street as a place for the free exchange of ideas, a place that has long offered its sanctuary to the complete spectrum of Iraqi voices, and a place where the roots of democracy took hold many hundreds of years ago.

The Art of Nonfiction Movie Making
Praeger, 2012
Hardcover, 248 pages, $48

The past few years have featured such blockbusters as Super-Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, March of the Penguins, and An Inconvenient Truth. And as news articles proclaim a new era in the history of documentary films, more and more new directors are making their first film a nonfiction one. But in addition to posing all of the usual challenges inherent to more standard filmmaking, documentaries also present unique problems that need to be understood from the outset. Where does the idea come from? How do you raise the money? How much money do you need? What visual style is best suited to the story? What are the legal issues involved? And how can a film reach that all-important milestone and find a willing distributor?

Film Program chair Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (co-founders of Telling Pictures Inc. and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmakers) tackle all of these important questions with examples and anecdotes from their own careers.