Writing + practice at the intersection of illustration + graphic design
D.B. Dowd is a writer, illustrator, and curator. His new book, Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration will be published by Princeton University Press in March 2026. He posts work and speculates about culture on his blog, Graphic Tales. Dowd teaches design at Washington University in St. Louis.
Reading Pictures:
A History of Illustration
“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
D.B. Dowd
![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)
