Eye Magazine

Opinion: Design history

Editorial Eye 103

Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Editorial

It is commonplace to say that history is written by the winners, but the historical record needs to be challenged.

Experiments in destabilisation

Critical path, Design education, Design history

A CalArts book celebrates decades of purposeful graphic weirdness. Critique by Rick Poynor

Los Angeles’ lost palace of treasures

Book design, Design history, Information design, Critique / Photography

Using photographic evidence, designer Mark Nelson has reconstructed one of the great twentieth-century art collections. Photo Critique by Rick Poynor

Palaces of petroleum

Design history, Graphic design, Photography, Critique / Photography

The adventurous design of a 1960 book promoting Australia’s fossil fuel industry offers a poignant glimpse of an optimistic, unquestioning age.Photo Critique by Rick Poynor

Cold War culture-jammer

Design history, Photography, Visual culture

Hispanic photomonteur Josep Renau aimed Technicolor jets of scorn at the mirage of US consumerist culture. By Rick Poynor

Words and pictures talking

Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Photography, Typography, Critique / Photography

Canongate has reissued John Berger and Jean Mohr’s A Fortunate Man, about Gloucestershire doctor John Sassall. How does it compare with the 1967 original? Photo Critique by Rick Poynor

Readymade format

Design history, Visual culture

An illustrated ‘gift book’ dictionary by Heretic brings Marcel Duchamp’s ideas to a wider audience. Critique by Rick Poynor

Photographer as page maker

Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Photography, Reviews, Visual culture, Web Critique

David Campany’s examination of Walker Evans’ freewheeling magazine work – for Fortune, Architectural Forum, Life, and others – is a revelation. Photo Critique by Rick Poynor