By Lousie Sandhaus

415 pages, hardcover, $55. Published by Metropolis Books, artbook.com

This outstanding book perfectly captures the color-saturated design zeitgeist of California, a place of extremes seesawing between drought and flood, earthquake and fire—brilliance and kitsch. Equal parts art book and condensed history lesson, this is the first comprehensive look at the innovative, rule-breaking, culture-defining design that has made our most populous state a worldwide beacon of cool. From the expected (John Van Hamersveld’s iconic Endless Summer poster) to relatively unknown gems, there are hundreds of examples, including a Communication Arts cover from 1967 adorned by a bevy of popular buttons from the era, like Kiss Don’t Kill. Designer/author Sandhaus has divided the book into four sections: Sunbaked Modernism, Industry & the Indies, Sixties Alt Sixties and California Girls, each accompanied by insightful essays from design notables. One caveat: You might need to wear your sun­glasses to view certain pages of this book—some designs almost literally cast a glow. The book is admirably suited to its content. Different paper stocks are employed for each section, and Jens Gehlhaar tailored his font family CIA Compendium to it, creating dynamic quotation pages to mark each new section. A decade-long labor of love, Earthquakes deserves a place on every designer’s shelf. —Anne Telford