Ed Fella: A Life in Images

Ed Fella is revered by many of the leading names in contemporary design. Now, at long last, there is a book that charts Ed’s journey from the commercial design studios of 1950s Detroit to his current position as a widely celebrated artist/designer. Ed Fella: A Life in Images makes extensive use of his vast treasure store of visual delight: it showcases flyers, posters, original sketches, drawings, Polaroids and collages, as well as items from Ed’s collection of vernacular design. Ed Fella is the designer that many designers would like to be. Not in the sense of copying him, or even doing the type of work he does. Rather, he is admired for the way he has freed himself from the restrictions that nearly all graphic designers work under. As designer and writer Lorraine Wild states: “Fella describes himself as an ‘exit-level designer’, meaning that he still produces work that emulates graphic design (in that it uses typography and other graphic means and materials) but which is created without the constraints of clients, budgets, schedules, and project definitions.” Ed himself has a clear idea about his position. He says: “I'm not an amateur or an outsider artist, I'm an outlier. But there's a lot of study, reading and thinking that went into the things [I make], but not necessarily consciously while I was doing them."