LibGuides: Art & Design Research Guide: Graphic Design

Welcome! This page offers an introduction to graphic design resources at UMSL Libraries. You will find examples of reference texts and other books, databases with design content, and helpful websites. Please visit the Books or Articles pages of this guide for additional search tips.

For design faculty: Please contact the arts & humanities librarian for purchase suggestions or instruction requests!

Meggs' History of Graphic Design

Typography, Referenced

Writing and Research for Graphic Designers

Logo Modernism

Graphic Design, Referenced

The Designer's Dictionary of Color

Graphic Design: The New Basics

Digital Design Essentials

The Graphic Design Idea Book

Visit our A-Z Databases page for a complete list. Filter by "Art & Design" for databases with design content.

Art Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Art Full Text is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from periodicals published throughout the world. Full-text coverage for selected periodicals is also included.
Periodical coverage includes English-language periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, as well as periodicals published in French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish. In addition to articles, Art Full Text indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.
Abstracting coverage begins in 1984. Full-text coverage begins in 1995.Topics covered include art history & criticism, architecture & architectural history, archaeology, antiques, museum studies, graphic arts, industrial design, landscape architecture, interior design, folk art, painting, photography, pottery, sculpture, decorative arts, costume design, television and video, motion pictures, advertising art, non-western art, textiles and much more.
Ad*Access This link opens in a new window
The Ad*Access Project presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. & Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955 and covers five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
JSTOR contains articles and books, usually at least 3-5 years old, from scholarly sources. They also have some primary resource collections. For more recent material, use Discover@UMSL or other individual databases.
Journal Collections
Arts & Sciences I – XV
Life Sciences
Business IV
Hebrew Journals
Ireland
Public Health
Lives of Literature

Reports & Research
Security Studies
Sustainability

Primary Sources
19th Century British Pamphlets (Bristol Selected Pamphlets, Cowen Tracts, Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, Hume Tracts, Knowsley Pamphlet Collection, LSE Selected Pamphlets, Manchester Selected Pamphlets, Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection)
World Heritage Sites: Africa (Reference)
Struggle for Freedom: Southern Africa (Reference)
Global Plants (Reference)
Communication and Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Communication & Mass Media Complete provides quality research in areas related to communication and mass media.
This database originated with the acquisition and subsequent merging of two popular databases in the fields of communication and mass media studies -- CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University).
O'Reilly for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Covers a wide variety of topics: computers, programming, hardware, system administration, security, general software, business case studies, accounting, careers, presentations, science, medicine, psychology, math, statistics & data science, travel & hobbies.
Formats include learning paths, case studies, interactive tutorials, audio books, videos, etc.
O'Reilly requires users to log in with their SSO and maintains a record of your progress and recently used items. See below for information on how to make permalinks directly to individual items.
Help: O'Reilly for Higher Education and O'Reilly for Public Libraries

Linking to a book within O'Reilly:
Example URL for Think Python, 3rd Edition: https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/hands-on-machine-learning/9781492032632/
The direct link which will authenticate users for this book would be:
https://go.oreilly.com/university-of-missouri-at-st-louis/library/view/think-python-3rd/9781098155421/

The formula is https://go.oreilly.com/university-of-missouri-at-st-louis/library/view/ plus the bolded section below from the book's URL you see in your browser:
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/think-python-3rd/9781098155421/?sso_link=yes&sso_link_from=university-of-missouri-at-st-louis
think-python-3rd/9781098155421/
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a scholarly, multidisciplinary full-text database, with several thousand full-text periodicals, most of which are peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for many more journals, monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
The database features PDF content going back as far as 1887, with the majority of full-text titles in native (searchable) PDF format.

This resource is partially funded by MOREnet, the Missouri Research and Education Network.

A short selection of design periodicals. To explore more, use the journals search to browse by discipline or search specific titles.

Design Issues
1 year delay
Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design
03/2007 - 06/2014
International Journal of Design
Open Access
Print
Acta Graphica
Information Design Journal
Communication Arts
Print only

American Institute of Graphic Arts
Professional organization for designers. See also: the AIGA Design Archives, offering digital collections of design samples, some as early as 1924.
Counterspace Typology Timeline
Fonts in Use
"A public archive of typography indexed by typeface, format, industry, and period."
Decentering Whiteness in Design History
Bibliography (Google Doc) of resources for design history instructors.
Graphic Artists Guild
Organization for graphic designers, illustrators, animators, web developers, and more. Website details advocacy efforts, offers educational resources, advertises events, and more.
The People's Graphic Design Archive
"A crowd-sourced, virtual archive that aims to expand, diversify, and preserve graphic design history."

Art & Design Research Guide

Diverse Perspectives in Graphic Design

Decolonizing Design

Queer X Design

Extra Bold

The Black Experience in Design

W.E.B. du Bois's Data Portraits

Baseline Shift

The Design of Dissent, Expanded Edition