Opinion: Design history
Palaces of petroleum
Design history, Critique / Photography
The adventurous design of a 1960 book promoting Australia’s fossil fuel industry offers a poignant…
Cold War culture-jammer
Design history, Visual culture
Hispanic photomonteur Josep Renau aimed Technicolor jets of scorn at the mirage of US consumerist…
Words and pictures talking
Design history, Critique / Photography
Canongate has reissued John Berger and Jean Mohr’s A Fortunate Man, about Gloucestershire doctor John…
Readymade format
Design history, Visual culture
An illustrated ‘gift book’ dictionary by Heretic brings Marcel Duchamp’s ideas to a wider audience.…
Photographer as page maker
Design history, Magazines, Reviews, Visual culture, Web Critique
David Campany’s examination of Walker Evans’ freewheeling magazine work – for Fortune, Architectural…
Inspiration
Designer Simon Esterson finds inspiration in Ken Briggs’s National Theatre programmes from the 1960s
Chewing it over: issues of style and content
Inspiration: Pioneer 10 plaque (1972)
Design history, Technology, Visual culture
Billions of miles from Earth and still travelling, this etched metal plaque is the furthest piece of…
Changing of the guard
American graphic design is divided. The once rebellious avant-garde has become the status quo, while the…
What has writing got to do with design?
We canonise the giants of design history as champions of total authorship, while overlooking the obvious…