This series contains materials created by Lighter in his capacity as a professional designer and illustrator. Lighter's book and textbook design contributed to a movement away from cheap book design and embraced a renewed aestheticism and artistry in the field, following the lead of modernist German artist and designer George Salter. Along with designers such as Tom Suzuki, Lighter's textbook design helped to bring a new emphasis on design to textbooks.

Lighter’s early career is represented by the materials he produced while working for the typography firm Kurt H. Volk, Inc., consisting primarily of prints and illustrations for sample brochures. Though much of this material isundated, they appear to be from the mid-1950s and 1960s.

There are also several advertisements originating from this period: a General Electric advertisement--featuring photographic self-portraits of Lighter--and a brochure for the Raymond-Whitcomb Cruise Club.

Also in the 1950s, Lighter designed a number of album covers for RCA Camden, a budget label of classical recordings under RCA Victor. Materials relating to album covers include woodcut print blocks, sample prints, and album cover proofs.

Materials from Lighter’s work as a book designer constitutes the majority of this series, which includes several examples of his designs from the 1950s for Emerson and Random House. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Lighter designed book covers primarily for scholastic textbooks published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Schocken Books, and Sheridan House. Included herein are a large amount of book cover proofs, original art and cover mock-ups, as well as several sculptures made for use on book covers.

Finally, there are several metal print plates, one for a book cover and two of photographs. Because they are dated from the 1920s, it is unclear what project they were used for.