This just jumped to the top of my shopping list. Graphic Design: The New Basics is a new book from Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips that seeks to re-present the time-tested principles of graphic design in a way that is more meaningful and relevant to contemporary students:
During the 1990s, design educators became caught in the pressure to teach (and learn) software, and many of us struggled to balance the teaching of technical skills with and critical thinking. Form sometimes got lost along the way, as design methodologies moved away from universal visual concepts toward a more anthropological understanding of design as a constantly changing flow of cultural sensibilities.
This book addresses the gap between software and visual thinking. By focusing on form, we have re-embraced the Bauhaus tradition and the pioneering work of the great formal design educators, from Armin Hofmann to some of our own teachers, including Malcolm Grear.
I promise to write a full review when the book arrives, but in the meantime, feast upon the website, which is a fantastic stand-alone resource in itself, touching on all the major aspects of a graphic design education and supplying design challenges for each topic.