Philip B. Meggs

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Philip Baxter Meggs (1942–2002) was an American graphic designer, professor, historian and author of books on graphic design. Currently his book History of Graphic Design is required reading in many courses on design.

He has been called the most important historian of design since Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983). In contrast to Pevsner, he published a history of graphic design that went beyond the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of the first educators to create an overview of the history of graphic design that did not depend exclusively on the traditional structure of the history of the art, Meggs believed that graphic design would need to acquire an adequate understanding of the past and its relation with art.

1 Life and early career
2 Career and accolades at VCU
3 Selected Bibliography
4 external links

[edit] Life and early career

Meggs was born on May 30, 1942 in Florence, South Carolina, to Wallace Nat Meggs and Elizabeth Pruitt Meggs.

He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and an honorary doctorate from Massachusetts College of Art.

He married Libby Phillips Meggs circa 1964 and had two children, Andrew Philip Meggs and Elizabeth Wilson Meggs.

[edit] Career and accolades at VCU

In 1968, he began teaching in the Communication Arts and Design Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, chairing the department from 1974 to 1987, during which time enrollment doubled and the program rose to national prominence. In addition to his teaching at VCU, he served as visiting faculty at Syracuse University and the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

His seminal work, History of Graphic Design, was published in 1983.

While a professor at VCU he authored more than a dozen books and 150 articles and papers on design and typography, including a section on graphic design in the Encyclopædia Britannica. He was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame and received its Educator's Award for lifetime achievement and significantly shaping the future of the fields of graphic design education and writing.

He died of leukemia at the age of 60 and was buried at Dale Memorial Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

[edit] Selected Bibliography

1983 the History of Graphic Design. (1st edition)
1992 Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design.
1993 Typographic Design: Form and Communication. for Philip B. Meggs and Rob Carter ISBN 0-442-00758-2
2004 The History of Graphic Design. ed. McGraw-Hill.
2005 Meggs' History of Graphic Design. Ed. Wiley. (4th edition) Revised by Alston W. Purvis