Writing and practice at the intersection of illustration
and graphic design
D.B. Dowd teaches design and illustration at Washington University in St. Louis and serves as faculty director of the Dowd Illustration Research Archive (DIRA) at WashU Libraries. His new book, Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration will be published by Princeton University Press in March 2026. He draws and paints and speculates about culture here on his blog, Graphic Tales.
Reading Pictures:
A History of Illustration
D.B. Dowd
Princeton University Press, 2026
A history of illustration from the beginning of popular print to the rise of mass literacy and into today’s age of digital media.
Praise
“Lavishly illustrated. . . . [Reading Pictures] is impressively capacious. [A] lively, authoritative intellectual history.”—Kirkus Reviews starred review
“Illuminating. . . . Dowd’s selection of illustrations is generous, eclectic, and thought-provoking. . . . [Reading Pictures] sheds fresh light on a vital tool of media and culture consumption.”—Publishers Weekly
Blogs
![Edward W. Kemble [often, E.W.]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/538f6225e4b08958227ffcb5/1576047152771-6K6JYBQ83DOYC8UQF09F/Kemble004_det.jpg)
![Newell Convers Wyeth [N.C.]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/538f6225e4b08958227ffcb5/1575865723619-E3NS2PFBPHUSNM1B6U5Q/Wyeth_overland_1915_det.jpg)
Gallery Spotlight
News
What’s Going On?
![Double-dosage Stick Figures day. The book posits a duality in visual modes: the glyphic or symbolic; and the vedutic (from Italian *veduta* [view] SEE Canaletto) to capture illusion-making, or "simulated immanence." 1st belongs to the citiz](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/538f6225e4b08958227ffcb5/1564075491273-SFFITECKBRE3YI1BBCEE/image-asset.jpeg)
Spartan Holiday
A gallery from my ongoing series, equal parts travel writing, history and memoir. Richly illustrated, designed by/with the graphic designer Scott Gericke. Long live visual journalism.
Publications to buy
I publish reasonably priced zines and other items. Click on through to the Other Side.