12 Flat Things tells the stories of twelve visual artifacts chosen by twelve contemporary graphic designers. The designers each chose one piece that they feel is important to a young designer's understanding of graphic design's past, and this book peers into each selected artifact to find the stories it holds, the economic and social conditions of its creation, and its historical value to designers today.

The grouping of objects and stories allows us to map the larger contexts of graphic design, creating a construct of global design history and its contexts. It is not “the” history-it is “a” history, proving that history is a malleable thing that can be viewed from multiple angles. By rejecting a focus on the work of famous Eurocentric designers, it situates designed artifacts in their design contexts, and relates those contexts to each other and to the larger world and provides a springboard for readers themselves to explore the history of design outside the traditional canon.

· Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton - maps of Louise E. Jefferson
· Misha Beletsky – Centaur typeface
· Lorena Howard-Sheridan – photograph of a fossil
· Shruthi Manjula Balakrishna Kulkarni - printed restaurant menu
· Yoon Soo Lee - flat pattern pieces for jeogori
· Kevin Yuen Kit Lo – the red square
· Saki Mafundikwa - typographic mask
· Ray Masaki - Calpis packaging
· Ziddi Msangi - Kanga cloth
· Lorilee Rager - I Am A Man poster
· Bahia Shehab - an illuminated page from a Qur'an
· Lucille Tenazas – signs on a street corner