Philip B. Meggs

He died after a long battle with leukemia on November 24, 2002 at the age of 60 and was buried at Dale Memorial Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

Inspired by a lack of research and instructive materials on design history, theory and creative methods, Meggs started teaching a history of graphic design course in 1974. His efforts to record and understand the history of this profession lead him to publish his first book, A History of Graphic Design, in 1983. The core subject matter of the book drew on the histories of two intellectual traditions, graphic arts and visual communication.

In 1968, he began teaching in the Communication Arts and Design Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, chairing the department from 1974 to 1987, during which time enrollment doubled and the program rose to national prominence. In the late 1970s, Meggs used a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to travel to other institutions and teach the history of visual communication in an effort to promote the subject. In addition to his teaching at VCU, he served as visiting faculty at Syracuse University and the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1964 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1971, both from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He also received an honorary doctorate from Massachusetts College of Art.

In 1964 he married his college girlfriend, Libby Phillips, an art director and illustrator. They had two children, Andrew and Elizabeth.

Philip Baxter Meggs (30 May 1942 – 24 November 2002) was an American graphic designer, professor, historian and author of books on graphic design. His book History of Graphic Design is a definitive, standard read for the study of graphic design.

Meggs was born on May 30, 1942 in Newberry, South Carolina, to Wallace Nat Meggs and Elizabeth Pruitt Meggs. He had a twin brother, William Joel Meggs.

He has been called the most important historian of design since Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983). In contrast to Pevsner, he published a history of graphic design that went beyond the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of the first educators to create an overview of the history of graphic design that did not depend exclusively on the traditional structure of the history of the art, Meggs believed that graphic design would need to acquire an adequate understanding of the past and its relation with art.