It was in the early 20th-century renaissance of the decorative arts that modern graphic design was born, art made to serve the global expansion of business and industry.

Alain Weill traces the history of commercial imagemaking and typography in Europe and the United States, from the earliest poster artists to the radical avant-garde influences of Dada and Constructivism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus, from the political and social consciousness of the 1960s to the digital age.