Manuals 2

Published by Unit Editions

Manuals 2: Design & Identity Guidelines

Manuals 2 is a comprehensive study of corporate identity manuals from the golden era of identity design. First published in a limited run in 2014, the book sold out almost immediately. Since then we have received numerous requests to republish it and, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, this important collection is now back in print in a second edition.

As a companion volume to Manuals 1, Manuals 2 is a carefully-curated collection of 20th-century style guides, or as Steven Heller calls them – “sacred texts, revered for how they help shift graphic design from simply an intuitive practice to a rigorously strategic one”.

In today’s landscape, designers and, increasingly, non-designers rely on digital templates to implement brand identities – fast, accurate and easily updatable, these digital manuals are now obligatory. But, in the eyes of many, we have lost something in the transition to digital style guides, and there is a growing recognition that the great printed standards manuals from the pre-digital era deserve a better fate than to be junked. Manuals 2 makes a strong case for their survival and continued appreciation.

The book includes reproductions of 20 design manuals created for US and European institutions and corporations including IBM, Westinghouse, Canadian National Railway (CN), Bell System, Knoll, PTT, the Montreal Olympics and the Dutch police. Many of them have been designed by the giants of 20th-century identity design, including Lester Beall (USA), Paul Rand (USA), Allan Fleming (Can), Total Design (NL), Alan Fletcher (UK), Otl Aicher (Ger), Studio Dumbar (NL) and North (UK).