In the late 1960s, interior designer Warren Platner, a modernist who spent his formative years in the office of Eero Saarinen, began to skate along the edge of taste, his glitz tempered by clever architectural manipulations of space, his gilt tempered with black and cream. Viewed today, Platner's work of from the 70s and 80s seems just one reflection away from disco, one black room away from S&M. Each of his projects comes with the question: can he hold himself back? Can he convince us that brass is back? Is there any such thing as bad taste?

Writing books — manuals for the instruction of lettering and handwriting — are among the most beautiful of all books in the graphic arts. They are also among the rarest, routinely subjected to the wear and tear of generations of copyists. Bibliographically, they pose formidable challenges to scholars. Culturally, they are fascinating objects of study for a wide range of disciplines.