Yet First Choice – in its second edition, indeed – is neither complete nor elucidatory nor a proselytising force for design. It contains the work undoubtedly of many of the best and brightest designers throughout the world, with images that linger in the imagination. Why, then, does it fail to electrify? The reason lies both in the absence of a generative motive, beyond curiosity about what designers nominate as their favourite works, and the lack of any attempt to make sense of the range of design work shown, to put it into a context. There has been no effort at interpretation. And paradoxically in a book about graphic design, the actual graphic design here is dulling, narcotic. The very format sets up a formula that kills nuance and idiosyncrasy. Each designer’s style and character is reduced, not amplified, in the relentless matrix of near identical page layouts. There are no forays or explorations beyond the strictures of the grid, no hint of heterodoxy, no reference made to the very substantial cultural, generational, technological, and ideological differences affecting design.

And no reference made either to the fact that the designers are drawn mostly from the Alliance Graphique Internationale, a prestigious body to which membership is gained through invitation only. (Cato is a member.) The AGI network is diverse and catholic, yet its membership body is preponderantly middle-aged, white and male – a profile reflected in First Choice. So it becomes even more glaring when someone like April Greiman (an AGI member) is missing from this compilation. (Of the 100 + designers featured, eleven are women.)

Also largely absent is any noticeable representation of the avant-garde, which is now threatening to outpace the well-mannered design establishment represented in First Choice. (The book does, however, contain bad boys of graphic design, Tomato, a prominent avant-garde practice in London – although the impression is that their presence is token, and without any explanatory text, we cannot be sure of what is meant by a designer’s inclusion or otherwise.)

This phenomenon of the design establishment being overtaken by a new design sensibility that embraces disorder, illegibility and alienation is a consequence of the great changes in design production that computer technology has introduced. The decline of classic and modernist typographic canons and the massive conceptual changes wrought by computer technology are upsetting five hundred years of craft-based design tenets and redefining taste canons. As we approach the millennium, design faces the most enormous challenges since Gutenberg. Why is there no hint of this in the book?

An ironic reference to this enormous upheaval is provided, unwittingly, by New York design doyen Massimo Vignelli in the desperate plea for ‘good’ taste that appears on his favourite poster:

In the new computer age the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest.

But what Vignelli reviles as ‘visual pollution and degradation’ is precisely what the avant-garde is now playing with. And it is they, not Vignelli, who will inherit the future.

Intentional or not; the implication of the book’s egalitarian ordering and ostensibly neutral design is that this is a definitive compendium of current graphic designers – when clearly it is not. As a reader I would like to know what Cato’s own editorial and design values are, where he thinks design is headed, how he regards the various trends and tumultuous forces to be discerned in his compilation. And if not his, then the views of someone prepared to make a cultural commentary. It is not enough simply to present over one thousand contemporary graphic images and not endeavour to evaluate what they might mean in a wider cultural sense. Perhaps the presumption is that designers don’t read, and that it’s enough just to look at the images.

Of course the editor/designer of First Choice did not set out to analyse issues of change affecting the design world or to posit graphic design as the cultural expression and commentary that it indeed is. More is the pity. But if I emphasise what are missed opportunities in this book, at least I do understand something of Ken Cato’s dilemma. The contemporary design milieu is notoriously uncritical. Analysis is not its strong suit and the myth of the designer’s instinctive’ creativity’ is tenderly fostered – despite many designers being hard-headed and lucid about their craft. This book reflects that lack of critical judgment. Perhaps at some future time when such cultural analysis is possible, this book will prove its worth for having identified many of the key establishment graphic designers of the 1990s.