various designers

Recent articles about various designers

The data card trick

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

Data visualisation occurs at the intersection of design and data. It is a practice that grew…

Call and response

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

This hardback book is the catalogue for the 2022-2023 Letterform Archive exhibition of the same name…

We’ll always have Paris

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

Since its foundation in 1957, ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) has put typeface design and typography at…

Going off brand

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

Jason Grant and Oliver Vodeb’s uncompromising handbook of theory and action ends slyly with a ‘Brandspeak’…

Ecological literacy

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

The result of a decade spent ‘formulating a stronger ecological theory for design’, Joanna Boehnert’s Design…

The film poster as freeze-frame

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

Moving Pictures Painted: 200 Posters from the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema (CentreCentre, £30) lifts the…

Bad but good but …

Issue 105, Autumn 2023

Review

‘Wave: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts’ is a collection of ‘graphic arts’ with no typography. Tanaami…

Subterranean looks back

Issue 104, Spring 2023

Review

Before Steven Heller was the graphic design commentator, historian and educator Eye readers know well, he…

This is a column

Issue 104, Spring 2023

Opinion

Design that tells the story of its own making harks back to conceptual art of the 1960s. By Rick Poynor

Icons of oppression

Issue 103, Summer 2022

Feature

Belgian graphic design and the colonisation of Congo. By Sara De Bondt

Editorial Eye 103

Issue 103, Summer 2022

Opinion

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

Global type tour

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Feature

‘Typographics 21’ was a ten-session, online journey that covered type and lettering from around the world – but with the explicit exclusion of Europe and North America. By Gerry Leonidas

The Nebiolo legacy

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Feature

Though Italy’s most renowned type foundry closed its doors more than four decades ago, its influence endures. By the Nebiolo History Project

Shaded tints, a view of US racism

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Review

The Design of Race arrives at an inflection point in American society. Awareness of racial, socio-economic and class disparities has been at the forefront of national politics …

Feminist pot-luck

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Review

If you can get your hands on an original copy of Bookmaking on the Distaff Side, consider yourself lucky – it was printed in an edition of just 100 copies …

Crisis by design

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Review

Editors Tony Fry and Adam Nocek present Design in Crisis as part of an ‘ongoing conversation that aims to challenge how designers engage with the planetary crises …

A ground-breaking survey

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Review

As educators of visual communication in the Arab world, we are all too often guilty of…

Rebalancing the design canon

Issue 102, Autumn 2021

Opinion

Elizabeth Resnick looks at the practitioners and educators intent on revising our understanding of women’s roles in design history

Gender imbalance

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Review

Within the design publishing landscape, type-focused titles abound, yet type designed by women remains proportionally under-represented…

Seaside splendour

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Review

Eclectic, yet streamlined by design. It is perhaps unsurprising that Art Deco is associated with…

A rallying cry for ethics

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Review

There could not be a more apt time for the publication of Ethics in Design and…

Many players on the Olympic stage

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Review

Germany first hosted an Olympic Games in 1936, in Berlin and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and did so again…

Reputations: Mario Eskenazi

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Feature

‘Here in Europe everything was more formal, more rigid, and American design was freer, fresher. I tried to be a mix of the two.’ Interview by Sarah Snaith

The pandemic that launched a thousand visualisations

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Feature

Covid-19 has generated a growth in information design and an opportunity to compare different ways of visualising the impact of this deadly virus. By Paul Kahn

Crowd control

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Feature

Designers are making illustrated books through crowdfunding instead of traditional publishing methods. By John L. Walters

Mark Holt: Games, set and dispatch

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Feature

The title page credit for Munich ’72: The Visual Output of Otl Aicher’s Dept XI reads ‘Researched, written, edited, designed and published by Mark Holt.’ Interview by John L. Walters

Letterform Archive: Objects of Inspiration

Issue 100, Summer 2020

Feature

Letterform Archive is feeding the post-digital generation’s passion for physical artefacts

‘As, not for’: The critique goes on

Issue 100, Summer 2020

Feature

‘As, Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes’ is an itinerant exhibition of work by black designers whose legacy has been neglected for too long

Liza Enebeis: Curious creative director

Issue 100, Summer 2020

Feature

‘Since the outbreak of Covid-19, the world feels more united. This may be a trigger in the future for how we can be more unified and achieve results as a world collective.’

Where was Weimar?

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

The era of the Weimar Republic, which emerged in Germany in the wake of the…

Who cares if you read?

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

David Carson is indelibly linked to the notion of the ‘end of print’, encapsulated by…

Yes we can change

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

Sunny Dolat, co-founder of The Nest Collective, at What Design Can Do México City, 2019…

Encyclopedic ambitions

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

English-language historical surveys of illustration have been undertaken on both sides of the Atlantic from…

Thinking machine

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

In the vestibule of Level G at the Barbican a man stands before a large…

Big idea, small footprint

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Review

New York’s Mmuseumm is not a freak show but rather a show of freaky, poignant…

Ethics in the age of data capitalism

Issue 99, Autumn 2019

Feature

Has user-centred design dragged us to the brink of catastrophe? And if so, do we need a First Things First for the digital world?

Editorial Eye 98

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Opinion

When you visit St Bride Printing Library in London, or the living archive that is…

A century of no, No, NO

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Review

An air of discontent has been fomenting in the US since the turmoil of the…

The glyphic and the vedutic

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Review

D. B. Dowd’s Stick Figures is a self-consciously polemical book that invites argument.

States of independence

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Feature

The fragmentation of the type market has led to new ways of examining, acquiring and enjoying typefaces … and some confusion

Originality and inspiration

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Feature

It may be unrealistic to expect that every new typeface will be unique and original, but giving up this ambition leads to stagnation

Two cheers for publishing

Issue 98, Spring 2019

Feature

A two-volume book packed with graphic design history is a visual blockbuster, but does little for scholarship. By Rick Poynor

Small is beautiful

Issue 96, Spring 2018

Feature

Estonian design education enjoys a culture of innovation and experimentation thanks to the country’s tiny population, says Kristjan Mändmaa, Dean of Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts

Systematic play

Issue 95, Winter 2017

Feature

Using intuition, research and process, the work of Armin Lindauer and Betina Müller revitalises connections between art, design and science

Editorial Eye 94

Issue 94, Summer 2017

Opinion

The notion that graphic design is fundamentally a creative business, a form of art undertaken…

Design culture with constraints

Issue 92, Summer 2016

Review

Until recently, everyday commercial graphic design from East Germany was largely absent from the cultural…

Unpicking the design process

Issue 92, Summer 2016

Review

How do things in the design world actually get done? All too often the process…

Tints and tones at the dawn of film

Issue 92, Summer 2016

Review

Legend has it that audiences for the Lumière brothers’ film The Arrival of a Train…

A Roman legacy

Issue 90, Summer 2015

Review

The Eternal Letter is the first in a series of books dedicated to letterforms to…

Space for stories

Issue 87, Spring 2014

Opinion

Visual Editions’ box of literary maps challenges authors to think differently about the structures that link words and images. Critique by Rick Poynor

Raw and radical

Issue 86, Autumn 2013

Review

The ‘underground press’ died out more than 40 years ago. Yet it lives on, thanks…

Out of the shallows

Issue 86, Autumn 2013

Review

This photograph of a deliriously colourful 1969 swimming pool designed by Verner Panton for the…

The accessible elite

Issue 86, Autumn 2013

Feature

Linda Kwon reports on a design conference that aims to fight the ‘velvet rope syndrome’

Paper tigers

Issue 83, Summer 2012

Feature

Deborah Burnstone describes Fedrigoni’s inspirational workshops for secondary school art and design teachers

Need to experiment

Issue 10, Autumn 1993

Opinion

Letter from Teal Triggs in Eye 10

Glorious transit

Issue 85, Spring 2013

Review

Let’s face it, graphic design is short of real drama. There are no good design…

Source code for a design revolution

Issue 85, Spring 2013

Review

Processing, an open-source programming language and environment for creating visualisations, animation and interactive artwork, was…

First things last

Issue 14, Autumn 1994

Opinion

Letter from Ken Garland in Eye 14

A Monotype timeline

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Feature

A selected, chronological list of notable events in the long, complex history of Monotype

Russian revolution

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Feature

Polly Corrigan meets the founder of a new graphic design school in Moscow.

Pictures on a page

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Review

This Eye special issue about Monotype focuses on the technology of putting words on the…

Turn of the Screw

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Review

‘Sex sells!’ was a 1960s motto. Though not as popular as ‘Peace now’, ‘Make love…

Every word in its place

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Review

Reading Richard Hollis’s writings, one can’t help wondering how the esteemed graphic designer, writer and…

Deep in the Monotype archive

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Feature

A wide selection of Monotype’s drawings, artworks, publications and vintage photographs spread across a 40-page feature.

On being well read

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Review

In this shifting digital world, countless websites, blogs and social networks provide instant information on…

Pages from the library of libraries

Issue 84, Autumn 2012

Review

Graphic design, devoted as it is to re-framing text and image, thrives as an object…

Relentless information

Issue 83, Summer 2012

Review

Riding the persistent wave of popular interest in data visualisation, Taschen’s Information Graphics is a…

End of history? Graphic design hasn’t started

Issue 59, Spring 2006

Review

The New Views symposium elicited two distinct perspectives on graphic design history, raising questions about…

Crash covers

Issue 52, Summer 2004

Feature

J. G. Ballard’s novel resists attempts to summarise it with a single image

Classical crossroads

Issue 76, Summer 2010

Feature

Design meets serious music: long programme notes, small budgets and ‘de-averaging’

Charts change minds

Issue 82, Winter 2011

Feature

Description of the slave ship Brookes 1788

The mystery of frozen locomotion

Issue 75, Spring 2010

Review

This exhibition explores the static, two-dimensional representation of movement. In the catalogue (and in his…

Letters from Bologna

Issue 64, Summer 2007

Review

You could read the promotional material for this conference several times without getting a clear…

Back with a flourish

Issue 62, Winter 2006

Feature

A taste for ornamentation and 1970s kitsch has led to a revival in the swash, the ‘tea cosy’ of typography

Physical display

Issue 67, Spring 2008

Feature

How lettering is made for public display: hand-cutting in wood and stone, & routing in metal and plastic

Lost in flatlands

Issue 80, Summer 2011

Feature

Will the next generation of page layout programs give us back our sense of space?

Art without its bitter history

Issue 23, Winter 1996

Review

I have a problem with Stalin’s face. He looked exactly like my cat. Exactly. This…

Culture compass

Issue 78, Winter 2010

Feature

Andrew Losowsky on the ‘nonsensical authority’ of the Approval Matrix

Modernism and me: a survivor’s tale

Issue 59, Spring 2006

Review

On reading the first few pages of Natalia Ilyin’s Chasing the Perfect: Thoughts on Modernist…

Surface to space

Issue 67, Spring 2008

Feature

Maths, computers and the internet are bringing new life, form and purpose to a traditional paper art

Interview with Dan Fern

Issue 76, Summer 2010

Feature

Professor Dan Fern explains his pioneering ‘MAP / making’ course at the Royal College of Art, London.

The decriminalisation of ornament

Issue 58, Winter 2005

Feature

Spurned and marginalised for more than a century, decoration is enjoying a guilt-free renaissance

Nameless thing

Issue 57, Autumn 2005

Feature

Tokyo’s TDC rewards work that transcends means, intention, content, context – and just ‘is’

Adventures in motion pictures. The post-photographic age

Issue 77, Autumn 2010

Feature

Do editors’ demands for both motion and stills mean that an era of still photography is coming to an end?

Pin point

Issue 78, Winter 2010

Feature

Jack Schulze praises the ‘US space programme’ of mapping

Recent Photobooks: a connoisseur’s guide

Issue 62, Winter 2006

Review

Martin Munkacsi By F. C. Gundlach Steidl, €48. Thames & Hudson, £39.95 In the 1930s…

Design + music = magic

Issue 76, Summer 2010

Feature

The scene creates the style, and sleeves tell us what their contents sound like, but what next?

The steamroller of branding

Issue 53, Autumn 2004

Feature

Art and culture are open to interpretation. Why must we give them fixed identities?

Conference madness

Issue 49, Autumn 2003

Feature

It’s a messy hybrid of live chat show, summer camp, theatre and rock’n’roll

Reduction

Issue 38, Winter 2000

Feature

Is graphic design, with its allusions and clutter, fundamentally antithetical to minimalism?

Sticks in the mind

Issue 69, Autumn 2008

Feature

Does anyone care about posters, or are they just an ego-trip for the designers who still make them?

The Press Release

Issue 38, Winter 2000

Feature

The press release is one of the principal methods through which design companies, art directors and ad agencies speak to the media and the world outside. What does the press release say to the journalist during its brief journey from mailbox to wastebasket?

The endless library at the end of print

Issue 27, Spring 1998

Feature

Does the current avalanche of glossy books constitute a genuine design history – or mere graphic ephemera? By Teal Triggs

The chair man dances

Issue 28, Summer 1998

Feature

This little red book is a capitalist keepsake – a testament to the corporate culture of a chair company with exotic picture research.

The far side

Issue 81, Autumn 2011

Feature

Clients can seem stubborn, ignorant, wilful and slow, yet some build a relationship of strong mutual respect with design practices.

Scribble and strum

Issue 76, Summer 2010

Feature

The layout and art direction of music magazines reflect and champion a wide spectrum of tastes and genres.

First Things First Manifesto 2000

Issue 33, Autumn 1999

Feature

Thirty-three visual communicators renew the 1964 call for a change of priorities

Punk uncovered: an unofficial history of provincial opposition

Issue 33, Autumn 1999

Feature

British punk gave a sound, a voice and a visual currency to the disenfranchised and remote. Overlooked, uncelebrated and difficult – the output of the anonymous artworkers who packaged the vinyl spewed out by punk’s first waves captured the oppositional (and occasionally political) spirit of the time. By Russell Bestley and Ian Noble.

The designer as author

Issue 20, Spring 1996

Feature

Graphic authorship is taken for granted by many design theorists and it is gaining ground within practice, too. But the idea has received little sustained examination. What does it mean and what is really possible?

The look of Lolita

Issue 43, Spring 2002

Feature

The author ‘emphatically opposed’ showing a girl on the cover. Most publishers ignored him. By Christopher Wilson

Propaganda for the pocket

Issue 10, Autumn 1993

Feature

Czech matchbox labels form a miniature gallery of Czechoslovakian society under communism

Naked words

Issue 82, Winter 2011

Feature

Type-only book covers – whether deliberately austere, functional … or shouting loud from the shelves – have always had a place in publication design.

Places need signs

Issue 80, Summer 2011

Opinion

Information design, architecture and making buildings readable

Just Add Stock

Issue 73, Autumn 2009

Feature

The first Eye awards for the creative use of library images.

Golden age?

Issue 71, Spring 2009

Feature

The digital revolution still fuels a creative explosion in the way type is made and sold. Twelve practitioners take stock of the Zeitgeist

Phil Baines and Typography Now

Issue 71, Spring 2009

Opinion

A letter from Rick Poynor

Messy medium

Issue 64, Summer 2007

Opinion

Social media is shifting message-making away from mass media and into the hands of multiple users.

Beer: the real thing

Opinion

Beer labels promise authenticity and reliability. But what about taste? Critique by Rick Poynor

Chewing it over: issues of style and content

Issue 49, Autumn 2003

Opinion

Agenda In the spring issue of Eye (no. 47 vol. 12) I wrote a particularly…

Visual systems of life and death

Issue 101, Summer 2021

Feature

In this appendix to ‘The pandemic that launched a thousand visualisations’, Paul Kahn outlines more of the dynamic visual systems that help our understanding of Covid-19

Editorial Eye 34

Issue 34, Winter 1999

Opinion

Though we have designated this edition a ‘Public realm special issue’, it could be argued…

Your system sucks!

Issue 8, Autumn 1992

Feature

The flight from Modernism left a yearning for graphics that were rough, real, unaffected and believable. At some point, though, the downtown poster hardened into a convention

Mondo magazines

Issue 4, Summer 1991

Feature

Some of the sharpest and most influential graphic design ideas come from the new magazines. Eye thumbs the pages of the international press and takes a close look at three of the most consistently creative titles: i-D, Interview, and Beach Culture

Temple of type

Issue 2, Winter 1990

Feature

St Bride Library is one of the world’s best sources of information about type design and typography. Now it is under threat

White space, silent thoughts

Issue 33, Autumn 1999

Opinion

Visual data is often all we need: sound can divert the mind from interpretation, from completing the gesture. By Jessica Helfand

Are you sure you need that new logo?

Issue 10, Autumn 1993

Opinion

Graphic designers fill the world with a Babel of signs. Is it time we took them away again? By Ken Garland

Recent blog posts about various designers

Two winners, 2000 losers

11 January 2024
Awards madness, Critical path, Graphic design, Visual culture

Minnesota’s crowd-sourced flag and seal raise questions for professional design practice, writes Steven McCarthy

Minnesota’s crowd-sourced flag and seal raise questions for professional design practice, writes Steven McCarthy

Women in the room

31 December 2023
Awards madness, Critical path, Design education, Design history, Graphic design

The fifth edition of the AIAP Women in Design Awards (AWDA) brought together exemplary work from around the world.

The fifth edition of the AIAP Women in Design Awards (AWDA) brought together exemplary work from around the world.

Dotting the ‘i’

24 November 2023
Design education, Typography

‘Phil Baines shows us how to revel in the joy of graphic design.’ Quentin Newark reviews ‘Extol’

Quentin Newark reviews ‘Extol: Phil Baines Celebrating Letters’ at CSM’s Lethaby Gallery

The fantastic light trip

6 November 2023

Kevin Foakes (aka DJ Food) uncovers a strange, bright corner of analogue audiovisual culture

Wheels of Light is about the light shows devised for gigs and discos in the 1970s, 80s and 90s

Graphic design live #14

29 August 2023
Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday, Visual culture, Events and exhibitions

John Warwicker in Tokyo and Kyoto; Eastern European Design in Warsaw; Hipgnosis and Christopher Wilson in London; and failed posters of environmental crisis.

With summer coming to a close, Eye presents a selection of current and upcoming events worth noting in your calendars …

Nothing is real

17 July 2023
Illustration, Visual culture, Events and exhibitions

Bad is the new good. Quentin Newark descends into Japan House for ‘Wave: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts’.

Visiting, you descend stairs, like going into the Underworld …

Graphic design live #13

4 July 2023
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Posters, Events and exhibitions

magCulture in New York; Hipgnosis documentary (UK and online); contemporary Iranian posters in Zurich; and Mexican blackletter online.

Listed below are some current and upcoming events that have caught the attention of our editorial team this month. …

The collaboration games

20 June 2023
Graphic design, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture, Events and exhibitions

London Design Biennale 2023 positions design as a tool for global collaboration. By Gabriela Matuszyk

The biennale theme, ‘The Global Game’, responds to the current cultural climate by referencing Buckminster Fuller’s World Game …

The Panther experience

5 June 2023

New York’s Poster House explores the graphics at the heart of the Black Power movement. Robert Newman reports

‘Black Power to Black People’ is a powerful, inspirational collection of important cultural and political work …

Covid visualisations: 2023 update

6 February 2023
Design history, Information design, Motion graphics

Paul Kahn reflects upon the way Covid-19 data visualisations and reporting have changed over the past three years

In 2021, when ‘The pandemic that launched a thousand visualisations’ was published in Eye 101, there were hundreds of visualisations per week

Movers and shakers

6 October 2022
Graphic design, Typography, Motion graphics

Watch as DEMO takes over a multitude of Dutch public screens on Thursday 6 October

The second annual DEMO festival takes over 5000-plus screens on Dutch streets ...

Analogue survivors

20 September 2022
Graphic design, Information design, Technology, Typography, Events and exhibitions

Bob Richardson’s collection of BBC-related ephemera at St Bride is a must-see
‘A Kingdom of Cardboard’, which runs until 6 January 2023 at St Bride Library, is an…

How green is graphic design?

23 August 2022
Graphic design, Magazines, Technology, Type Tuesday, Events and exhibitions

Experts from the world of print, paper and graphic design discuss sustainability and print on Tuesday 6 September 2022

Join Pureprint’s Richard Owers, Jon Hill (Tortoise), Fedrigoni’s Annette Clayton and Eye’s Simon Esterson and guests to discuss doing the sustainable thing …



Bosnian War Posters

30 April 2022
Book design, Design history, Posters

A powerful collection of graphic art, collected shortly after the war ended, tells an emotive story of frenzied nationalism. By Daoud Sarhandi

In mid-1995, however, I went to Bosnia with a burning sense of outrage … we tracked down and photographed around 700 posters, magazine covers and postcards.

Year of the pictograms

8 September 2021
Brand madness, Design history, Graphic design, Information design, Posters, Reviews, Events and exhibitions

‘Tokyo 1964’ demonstrates the lasting influence of that year’s games on design for the Olympics
As this year’s Tokyo Olympic Games were nearing their end, an exhibition exploring the legacy…

Brazilian type bonanza

10 June 2021
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Typography

Lazy Dog Press aims to crowdfund an English-language anthology of Tupigrafia, founded in São Paulo by Claudio Rocha and Tony de Marco
Few type mags have had a lifespan of more than two decades, but the Portuguese-language…

Have we all been bad designers?

5 May 2021

Humans invented waste, and designers are part of the problem. Richard van der Laken writes about the No Waste Challenge
Recent data suggests that our landfills are growing by some two billion tonnes of garbage…

An Iranian vision

5 November 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Typography

Despite censorship and sanctions, a bilingual magazine showcasing Iranian and Western design has flourished for two decades. By Steven Heller
The history of visual arts in Iran is divided into two historical periods of Iranian…

Letterpress celebration

13 October 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday, Typography

Italy’s Tipoteca museum commemorates its quarter century with 25 specially commissioned posters. By Simon Esterson and James Clough
Based in Cornuda in the northeast of Italy, Tipoteca is one of the finest printing…

Crouwel’s institutional intuition

19 September 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Events and exhibitions

On the first anniversary of Wim Crouwel’s death, Alex J. Todd recalls a visit to the Stedelijk Museum exhibition ‘Mr. Gridnik’
On 19 September 2019, nine days before the opening of ‘Wim Crouwel: Mr. Gridnik’ at…

Font Li Beirut – harmony in discord

8 September 2020
Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday, Typography

Li Beirut is a unique font – made in a week by 160 type designers – to support victims of last month’s Beirut blast. Nadine Chahine writes for Eye about her Letters of Hope project
On Tuesday 4 August 2020, villages and towns to the north, east, and south of…

David King: Ranged Left!

1 September 2020
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Posters, Type Tuesday

Eye’s next Type Tuesday, ‘David King: Ranged Left!’ will celebrate the life and work of David King (1943-2016)
Please join us for the next Type Tuesday at 6pm (British Summer Time) on…

Pier review

20 July 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Decorative typography and lettering evoke the halcyon days of the British seaside. The fourth in Justin Burns’s series about coastal graphic design
Lettering, typography, and accentuated three-dimensional signs dominate the British coast, writes Justin Burns. The bright…

Say their names

6 July 2020
Critical path, Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Visual culture

In the weeks following George Floyd’s death, Minnesota’s Twin Cities filled with graphic expressions of rage, mourning, solidarity and hope. By Steven McCarthy
In the wake of George Floyd’s unwarranted death at the knee of a Minneapolis police…

Virtually speaking

24 June 2020
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, New media

Design educator Nigel Ball weighs in on the positives that Covid-instigated online talks have offered students who live far from big cities
It seems inappropriate to suggest that some good has come out of Covid-19 – given…

Books of seaside revelations

3 June 2020
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

Guidebooks have enticed visitors to resorts since the nineteenth century. The third in Justin Burns’s series about coastal graphic design in the UK
For decades, the guidebook has navigated visitors through the bright lights of the seaside, showcasing…

Ideas to the fore

6 May 2020
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Typography, Visual culture

A recent Spanish-language book champions South American designers in a typographic format that foregrounds their thoughts about practice
Books about Argentinian design are rare, as are books that more broadly consider and contextualise…

Resorting to type

16 April 2020
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Typography

In the first of a new series of Eye blog posts, Justin Burns explores the graphic language of the British seaside
Walk along the promenade and we are met with the sounds, smells and signs that…

Noted #97

7 April 2020
Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

Kitching’s letterpress lockdown, Gorilla returns, dogs in cars, quarantine fonts, colouring in and a pastel poster tribute to immigrants
Here is a selection of things that have caught our attention in recent (quarantined) weeks…

Books received #43

12 March 2020
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

Gothic comics for girls; soundsystem culture; The Power and Influence of Illustration by Alan Male; and Liz McQuiston’s Protest!
Here is a selection of titles that caught our attention in recent months. Gothic for…

Noted #96

19 February 2020
Graphic design, Illustration, Typography, Visual culture

Tom Gauld commission for St Bart’s Hospital, Elda Broglio’s ‘Amor de Verano’, Yuri Suzuki’s The Welcome Chorus, the On Design podcast and a typeface for the Shoah Memorial wall in Paris
Here is a selection of things – a typographic memorial wall, a selection of Type…

Harmonic voices

17 January 2020
Critical path, Design education, Reviews, Type Tuesday, Typography

Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography’s exhibition ‘Mike / Sierra / Tango’ addressed the broad landscape of contemporary, multi-script typefaces
An exhibition shown at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography [HMCT] and ATypI Tokyo 201…

Typographic hints for the next generation

26 November 2019
Design education, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Typography

‘The New Art School Rules’ is showing in Bury as part of Design Manchester 19. Review by Alex Cameron
‘The New Art School Rules!’ – part of Design Manchester 19 Festival – is an…

MagCulture Live 2019

20 November 2019
Graphic design, Magazines, Typography, Visual culture

The conference formerly known as ModMag gave magazine makers plenty to think about, and reasons to be optimistic
The ‘magCulture Live’ day of presentations by editors, art directors and publishers was one of…

Work in progress in Rotterdam

20 September 2019
Book design, Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Typography

AGI’s international president Dean Poole (New Zealand) talks about the ambitions of ‘In Progress’, this year’s AGI Open, 24 September 2019
Established in 2010 by the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) – a network of graphic designers…

Corporate folk art

16 September 2019
Design history, Graphic design, Visual culture

For BMW Art Cars, famous artists try their hands at graphic design, transforming sports cars into motorised canvases. Report by Jez Owen
If you are an art lover or a car enthusiast the phrase ‘Fine art curated…

Books received #40 (education)

27 August 2019
Book design, Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Visual culture

Teaching Graphic Design History; Unfrozen – a Design Research Reader; The Graphic Design Reader; Writing for the Design Mind
Here is a collection of educationally oriented titles that have caught our attention in recent…

(Typographic) Noted #94

19 August 2019
Book design, Graphic design, Typography, Visual culture

Toulouse Letters; Brick Index; Jeremy Tankard’s Brucker; Morgue File 1 & 2; Reinventing Print: Technology and Craft in Typography
Here is a selection of type-related things – a new typeface and several typographic books…

Access all areas

25 July 2019
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Typography

Letterform Archive needs our help to move to a new home in San Francisco. Claire Mason describes her first encounter with the collection
Three years ago, in the summer of 2016, I took a sabbatical from Penguin Books…

(Dance) Noted #93

19 June 2019
Graphic design, Illustration, New media, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

2wice Arts Foundation; Tanec Praha; identity for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen; flamenco magazine El Canon; illustrated campaign for Texas Ballet Theater
Here is a selection of dance-related things that caught our attention in recent weeks. Two…

(Typographic) Noted #92

11 June 2019
Book design, Graphic design, Type Tuesday, Typography

WNBA rebrand; Caseroom’s Gun Dog; Swiss / Bolivian foundry Altiplano; Bantjes reloaded; Klim’s Sincerity / Irony
Here is a selection of type-related things – a rebrand, a new foundry and a…

Three design days in June

30 May 2019
Brand madness, Design education, Graphic design, New media, Typography

The second Birmingham Design Festival is packed with workshops, speakers, and most events are free. Luke Tonge explains who, what and why
Dan Alcorn and I initiated Birmingham Design Festival out of both frustration and amazement, writes…

Type now: Eye 98 live

28 May 2019
Design history, Graphic design, Music design, New media, Type Tuesday, Typography

Join us at St Bride Library for Eye’s quarterly Type Tuesday on 4 June, with Hansje van Halem, Mark Thomson, Ferdinand Ulrich and more …
The next Type Tuesday on 4 June 2019 is a live version of our latest…

More mags in Manhattan

22 May 2019
Food design, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Visual culture

The second Modern Magazine conference in New York City, boasting a glittering line-up of indie and mainstream talent, is just days away
The second annual one-day ModMagNYC will take place on Wednesday 29 May 2019 at Parsons…

Letters from Tokyo

20 May 2019
Typography, Visual culture

Sam Roberts reports from Tokyo Letterheads, an international ‘meet’ for letterers and sign painters
Last month’s Tokyo Letterheads event ended with an auction. One of the items (won by…

Not at your service

13 May 2019
Critical path, Graphic design, Reviews, Technology

Anne-Marie Willis has assembled a compelling collection of essays that address the ways design and philosophy can change our lives. Review by John O’Reilly
Bloomsbury’s new reader on the crossovers of design and philosophy asks us to question the…

Eye 98 out now

26 April 2019
Book design, Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Music design, Photography, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

The latest issue of Eye is a type special
The latest issue of Eye has been printed and it’s on its way to subscribers…

Noted #91

20 March 2019
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Typography, Visual culture

Situated Between (Treacy & Ozkal), Crayonograph, Le Gun no. 6, a journal from The Pre-Vinylite Society … and a typeset rectangular doily
Here are a few miscellaneous graphic artefacts that caught our attention in recent weeks. Situated…

(Typographic) Noted #90

15 February 2019
Graphic design, Typography

The 65th annual Type Directors Club competition, Patrick Thomas’s revised Protest Stencil Toolkit, the Whitney’s ‘programmed’ typeface and Studio Dumbar’s variable type City in Motion posters
Here is a selection of type-related things – recently announced type winners, a revised edition…

Books received #36

5 February 2019
Graphic design, Illustration, Information design

James Victore’s Feck Perfuction; Observe, Collect, Draw!; Brand By Hand; How To Do Great Work Without Being an Asshole
Here is a collection of self-help and ‘memoir-adjacent’ titles – all written by designers –…

Books received #34

23 November 2018
Book design, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

Thinking in Pictures, Typewriters, Pittori Di Cinema, The Golden Thread Project UK-USA and AGI Members 2007-2017
Here is a selection of books that caught our attention in recent months. Thinking in…

Search for a star (librarian)

20 November 2018
Critical path, Design education, Design history, Information design, Type Tuesday, Typography

St Bride Library is looking for someone to take charge of its extraordinary archive
The ad looks almost mundane at first glance, tucked away on a site called lisjobnet.com…

If you know where to look …

9 November 2018
Critical path, Design history, Graphic design, Reviews

Graphic design academics assemble in Sheffield to prepare for the next REF, the Research Excellence Framework. Report by Steve Rigley
The Research Excellence Framework (REF), which takes place every seven years, is the means by…

Collecting and connecting

9 October 2018
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

100 Archive presents graphic design from Ireland, together with work made by Irish designers worldwide. By Aideen McCole
Several years ago a group of Dublin graphic designers decided to create the online platform…

Noted #88

14 September 2018
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, New media, Typography, Visual culture

Karlssonwilker, Ultramarine’s new 7", Forme 01, Good Trouble, Good Chemistry Brewing’s branding and Design For Today
Here are a few things that caught our attention in recent weeks. Karlssonwilker – the…

New York state of mag

24 May 2018
Graphic design, Magazines, Visual culture

ModMag takes Manhattan next Wednesday for a one-day celebration of magazine-making with Gail Bichler, Richard Turley, Emily Oberman and more
Anyone who has attended or taken part in London’s annual Modern Magazine conference will know…

Outlook variable

15 May 2018
Reviews, Technology, Type Tuesday, Typography

TYPO Labs unveiled cool tools for both tyros and trailblazers. In the run-up to TYPO Berlin, Jan Middendorp delivers a considered report
As the Berlin mothership – TYPO Berlin 2018 – approaches, it seems like a good…

Great display in Harlem

21 March 2018
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Photography, Posters, Visual culture

Inspiring exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture illustrate the dynamic power of graphic design. By Robert Newman
If, like me, you’ve been both inspired and entertained by the cultural moment that the…

Vertical hold

6 December 2017
Graphic design, Information design, Magazines, Typography

The redesign of Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica is a bold statement in a time of change. By Giulia Tugnoli
How can printed newspapers compete or coexist with the abundance of free information in the…

ModMag17: Part one

10 November 2017
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Sarah Snaith reports from the fifth annual Modern Magazine conference
The fifth annual Modern Magazine conference, initiated and curated by magCulture founder Jeremy Leslie, took…

Noted #84

18 October 2017
Graphic design, Illustration, Typography, Visual culture

Tom Gauld’s literary bake-off, typography with balls, hot-metal Double Dagger 2, the smell of London and The Simoncini Method
Here are a few things that caught our attention in recent weeks. Baking With Kafka…

And then there were six …

14 October 2017
Awards madness, Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

The winner of the Man Booker Prize 2017 will be announced on 17 October. Robert Hanks talks to the designers whose covers wrap round the six shortlisted contenders
In ‘The look of literature’ I wrote about the thirteen covers on this year’s Man…

Books received #29

9 October 2017
Graphic design, Illustration, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Black Medicine Book, Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work, Fear, Colour and Hackney Studios
Here is a selection of books that caught our attention in recent weeks and months…

Noted #83

20 September 2017
Graphic design, Illustration, New media, Typography, Visual culture

Sea Prayer, Poster House, Pit, Straight No Chaser and National 2
Here are a few things – VR journalism, Poster House, new issues of Pit and…

Sea levellers

18 September 2017
Visual culture

The 2017 Folkestone Triennial turns this seaside town into an open-air gallery for a kind of applied conceptual art … with a graphic edge
Folkestone is hosting its fourth Triennial, a two-month-long festival of contemporary art that can be…

Zines with superpowers

22 August 2017
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Visual culture

In the shadow of Grenfell, local children make pages for a magazine workshop. By Oswin Tickler
The devastating fire at Grenfell Tower in West London in June 2017 is still having…

Books received #27 (type books)

26 June 2017
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Typography

Custom Lettering of the 20s and 30s, Word Disco, Type is Beautiful, Type Tells Tales and Johnston & Gill: Very British Types
Here are a few typographically oriented books that caught our attention in recent months. Type…

(Typographic) Noted #82

7 June 2017
Design education, Graphic design, Type Tuesday, Typography

Emigre specimens, Sunday Clarendon, Sinem Erkas, drawing type, from sketch to screen and Fontsmith’s TypeNotes
Here are a few type and lettering things – books, magazines, alphabets – that caught…

Porto’s studio culture

1 June 2017
Awards madness, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Posters, Typography

This year’s European Design Awards ceremony was held in the city of Porto, which is about to launch an international design biennale
Last weekend, designers from all over Europe converged on Porto for the European Design Awards…

Noted #80

3 March 2017
Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines

Le Petit Néant, Pencil & Help, Tom Gauld’s Mooncop, The Fred and Knife
Here are a few things that caught our attention in recent weeks. The third issue…

Information is everywhere

23 January 2017
Design history, Graphic design, Information design, Technology

Awards tell only a fraction of the story, but there was plenty to learn from at the Information is Beautiful Awards, writes Max Gadney
The 2016 Information is Beautiful Awards were a generous and cerebral jamboree hosted by David…

Noted #79

6 January 2017
Book design, Illustration, Magazines, New media, Photography, Reviews

Graffiti removal, Circular #19, The Phonografik Collectivo, Optimology° and Fermata
Here are a few things – graffiti removal, a Phoenician alphabet project, a media wall…

Ghosts of designbots yet to come

21 December 2016
Critical path, Design education, Graphic design, Technology

Automated graphic design and the rise of robot creatives – Francisco Laranjo files a critical report from the perspective of Christmas 2025
From our perspective here in 2025, it all seems inevitable, writes Francisco Laranjo. But maybe…

Books received #24

7 December 2016
Book design, Graphic design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Eggers in the sky, Callahan’s streets, Tim Burton, rubber-stamped Chilean horror and a Brit in Japan
Here are a few photobooks that have recently caught our attention … each reviewed in…

Loud, proud and animated

2 December 2016
Graphic design, Illustration, Photography, Technology, Visual culture

Tate Britain’s ‘BP Loud Tate’ brought together hip-hop, digital animation and a talk about women of colour in the arts hosted by Gal-dem magazine
On Saturday 12 November, an array of UK-based artists and musicians took over Tate Britain…

Type on the campaign trail

30 October 2016
Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

US designers contribute type, posters, badges and branding to the Hillary Clinton cause
From the outset, the Hillary Clinton campaign has enlisted the help of some of the…

Human rights by any other name

24 October 2016
Critical path, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Visual culture

This poster exhibition is a powerful statement about women as global agents of social change. Marika Preziuso reviews ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’ in Boston
The exhibition ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights’ aims to inform international public opinion on all…

Noted #78

18 October 2016
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Posters, Type Tuesday, Typography

TypoCircle exhibition, Arjowiggins paper sample, Double Dagger, D&AD Manual 2016 and SEA 20
Here are a few things – an exhibition, paper sample, letterpress journal, manual and book…

Books received #23

10 October 2016
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Photography, Posters, Reviews

When War is Over, Drawn in Stereo, George McGovern & The Democratic Insurgents, The Big Adventure of a Little Line and Money
Here are a few books that caught our attention in recent weeks … each reviewed…

Books received #22 (EDA special)

15 September 2016
Awards madness, Book design, Graphic design, Typography

Oldřich Hlavsa, Fairy Tales, FBA: O design gráfico como prática de clarificação, Carved Names and El Protectorado español en Marruecos
The 2016 European Design Awards drew submissions from all across Europe – Poland, Greece, Hungary…

Noted #77

7 September 2016
Book design, Brand madness, Magazines, Music design, Technology, Typography

Beer cans, Dutch Alphabets, the Global Synthesizer Project, An Anthology of Decorated Papers and Chanced Arm no. 2
Here are a few things – beer cans, books, a sound installation and a magazine…

Optimistic tales and theories

2 September 2016
Illustration, New media, Typography, Visual culture

The ICON illustration conference in Texas had both practical pizzazz and academic depth. Roderick Mills, one of the speakers, reports
‘Tall Tales’, the ninth edition of the biennial ICON illustration conference was held in Austin…

The ultimate Ultrabold

27 August 2016
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Typography

After ten eventful years, St Bride’s house magazine is on pause
The news that St Bride Foundation intends to cease publication of Ultrabold in its present…

Image-making beyond style

17 August 2016
Critical path, Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

In Copenhagen this week: POST Design Festival – ‘a rallying cry for those who want design to serve society’
In October last year I met with illustrator Jody Barton over the coffee and pastries…

Encore for Curtain Call

11 August 2016
Illustration, Music design, New media, Reviews, Typography

Ron Arad’s Roundhouse installation is an immersive 360-degree cinema for artists’ films
Ron Arad’s Curtain Call is part art installation, part immersive cinema, writes Janet South. The…

Noted #76

27 July 2016
Graphic design, Magazines, Typography, Visual culture

Pureprint Works #4, Francesco Griffo, Beatrice Warde Scholarship winner Ania Wieluńska, London bus destination boards and Ghostbusters!
Here are a few things that caught our attention in recent weeks. Pureprint, Eye’s printers…

Fileteado Porteño – past and present

7 July 2016
Design history, Illustration, Visual culture

A vernacular folk art has become synonymous with the visual identity of Buenos Aires. Gustavo Ferrari explains this extraordinary craft
Fileteado porteño is a traditional Argentinean artform, which began as simple decoration on the trade…

What design didn’t do

30 June 2016
Critical path, Graphic design, Information design, Posters

As a designer I feel guilty, says Marina Willer. Could we have done more to stop Brexit?
Twenty years ago, I chose to move from Brazil to London because it is the…

Typeset in concrete

21 June 2016
Book design, Reviews, Typography, Visual culture

Visual poetry crashes into the 21st century in all its brutal beauty. Jeremy Noel-Tod reviews The New Concrete (Hayward Publishing)
The original postwar ‘concrete poetry’ movement, with its aspiration to a utopian ‘supranational’ poetry of…

Noted #75

13 May 2016
Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

I Like Birds in Trittau; Mucho’s Tenderloin; Cercle on Costumes and P98a Paper’s Zombies of Berlin
Here is a small selection of graphic design for galleries and museums and magazines that…

Offset 2016: day three

29 April 2016
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Visual culture

Studio Dumbar, Niall McInnery, Andy Ristaino, Úna Burke, McBess, Stephen Averill and Shaughn McGrath … and Seb Lester. Pam Bowman and Matt Edgar conclude their coverage of the Dublin Offset conference
By the Sunday morning at Offset 2016, more coffee is required, with several extra shots…

Remediation in Warsaw

4 April 2016
Critical path, Graphic design, Posters, Visual culture

Posters aren’t dead, they’re just off the wall. David Crowley explains the thinking behind the forthcoming Warsaw International Poster Biennale
The Warsaw International Poster Biennale is 50 years old in June, writes David Crowley. Once…

Relocation to Albertopolis

19 March 2016
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Information design, New media

Save the date! On 24 November 2016 the new Design Museum opens at the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington
Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic yesterday announced the date – Thursday 24 November 2016 –…

The calm collector

24 February 2016
Book design, Brand madness, Design history, Graphic design

A new collection of Steve Hare’s writing demonstrates an erudite passion for the design and content of Penguin Books
The late Steve Hare (1950-2015) was one of those writers that every editor appreciates, writes…

Classic Collections – Back to the 90s

11 February 2016
Design history, Graphic design, New media, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

Surf back down the information superhighway to a time when the World Wide Web was thrillingly new – with Eye nos. 14, 16, 23 & 25
Most early editions of Eye magazine are out of print. However a handful from the…

Picture an orphan

7 February 2016
Book design, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

What do Luke Skywalker and Oliver Twist have in common? Clare Walters reviews Drawing on Childhood at the Foundling Museum
Given the perennial struggle against war, famine, disease and poverty, it is not surprising that…

Gutter press

21 January 2016
Brand madness, Critical path, Food design, Graphic design

Nigel Ball on packaging graphics, ‘gutter share’ – and whether design blogs should be more sceptical about big brand news stories
As a design educator I need to keep on top of the latest developments, writes…

Warning cries

14 January 2016
Design history, Illustration, Posters, Reviews, Visual culture

Paul Rennie casts new light on RoSPA’s safety posters. Review of Safety First by Clare Walters
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) employed many of the best designers…

More design for eating

7 January 2016
Design history, Food design, Illustration, Visual culture

Menu Design in America looks back at more than a century of visual and culinary history
There is something very satisfying about a menu. Whether it be the cutout of a…

Classic Collections – On and Off the Wall

31 December 2015
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Visual culture

A bundle of poster-themed back issues – 38, 46, 51 & 69
Eye magazine has often covered the changing nature of poster design and its place in…

Illustration as anthropology

4 December 2015
Illustration, New media, Reviews, Visual culture

In Assembly Point, a new gallery space in Peckham, eleven illustrators take a critical approach to their practice
This exhibition of contemporary illustrators is a serious affair, writes Colin Davies. The title ‘Mut…

West End mags and East End zines

18 November 2015
Food design, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Visual culture

The BSME’s upcoming event ‘Indie Mag Madness’ is a chance to hear from some of the best people making and distributing indie magazines today
Next Monday the BSME (The British Society of Magazine Editors) will hold its first ever…

Noted #71

3 November 2015
Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday, Typography

TPTQ Arabic; Frank; FS Brabo by Fontsmith; Typomad 2015; New Perspectives in Typography; The Eric Gill Series
Typotheque’s Peter Biľak has announced the launch of TPTQ Arabic, a new type foundry dedicated…

Books received #16

26 October 2015
Book design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

In Progress, Glyph*, Lago, Patternalia and Street Art Santiago
Here are a few books that have caught our attention in recent weeks. Jessica Hische’s…

Disappearing act

24 September 2015
Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

The Graphic Workshop was a Boston artists’ collaborative, whose ‘Endangered Species’ poster series is celebrated in a current exhibition. By Paul Dobbs and Elizabeth Resnick
The Graphic Workshop was an artists’ collaborative in Boston that produced hundreds of remarkable silkscreen…

Books received #15

9 August 2015
Graphic design, Information design, Photography, Visual culture

Data Design; Mucho’s Sonia Delaunay catalogue; Alvin Langdon Coburn; and Irma Boom explores the cosmos with Olafur Eliasson
Here are a few more books that caught our attention in recent weeks. A selection…

Beyond selfish

13 May 2015
Information design, New media, Photography, Visual culture

Could Selfiecity’s systems of visual analysis one day become a force for the common good?
‘Selfies’ are a cultural phenomenon, and it seems you cannot move for people taking them…

Noted #67

11 May 2015
Illustration, Magazines, Music design, Visual culture

Chineasy, The Happy Reader, Yellow, Brick and Puss Puss
Here are a few projects that have caught our attention in recent weeks. The three…

Noted #66

24 March 2015

Gourmand Grotesque 777 & 888, 10x10, Type Team, PLINC and A Typographic Bestiary
Here are a few #TypeTuesday books, catalogues and specimens that caught our attention in recent…

Offset 2015: day two

20 March 2015
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Visual culture

Aisha Zeijpveld, Declan Shalvey, Steve Doogan, Tomi Ungerer, Veronica Ditting, Anders Eklind and Björn Engström, Chrissie Macdonald and Snask. Anna Kealey continues her coverage of the Dublin conference
Saturday’s illustration-heavy line-up at Offset welcomed artist, author and designer Tomi Ungerer, illustrator Chrissie Macdonald…

Kemistry’s greatest hits

13 March 2015
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

Kemistry Gallery’s brief pop-up exhibition at Protein Studios gives visitors a chance to sample its quirky approach to design and graphic art
Kemistry Gallery occupied a small space in Shoreditch for ten years, and in that time…

Mounted, not sprayed

5 February 2015
Illustration, Information design, Reviews, Visual culture

International street artists ‘map their spaces’ on the walls of London’s Somerset House
‘Mapping the City’, featuring 50 artists, occupies the New Wing of Somerset House, a space…

Mirror on the wall

21 January 2015
Information design, New media, Posters, Visual culture

The global financial crisis sparked the creation of O Espelho (The Mirror) – a wall newspaper for the streets of Lisbon. By Rose Epple
The first appearance of the Portuguese wall newspaper O Espelho – on 12 November 201…

Stepping into stories

16 January 2015
Illustration, Photography, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

The Story Museum in Oxford celebrates the power of fiction with an exhibition that combines spoken word with photography and installation design
The Story Museum, which opened in 2014, occupies an unrefurbished building in the heart of…

Noted #65

31 December 2014
Graphic design, Information design, Magazines, Typography

Noble Rot and OOMK magazines, the Redstone Press diary and two calendars in glorious colour
Here are a few things that caught our attention as 2014 crossfades into 2015. Quarterly…

Books received #11

7 November 2014
Graphic design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Paul Graham, Rian Hughes, Modern Toss, The Art of Noir and Nude’s take on underground graphics
Here are a few books that have caught our attention in recent weeks. Paul Graham’s…

Type Tuesday: No end of print?

1 September 2014
Book design, Design education, Graphic design, Magazines, Photography, Technology, Type Tuesday, Typography

Eye’s panel of printers, designers, photographers and publishers will talk about the past, present and future of printing this Tuesday evening at St Bride
The Type Tuesday event at St Bride Library in London (2 September 2014) is entitled…

Shouting from the library

31 July 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Reviews, Visual culture

A review of 21 Revolutions by Elizabeth F. Beidler
21 Revolutions tells the story of Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) through the eyes of 4…

Learning from L’Automàtica

24 July 2014
Design education, Graphic design, Technology, Typography

East London students attend a letterpress workshop with the Barcelona printing collective
The University of East London discarded its letterpress equipment years ago, like many UK-based higher…

C for century

1 May 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Typography

The exhibition ‘Century: 100 Years of Type in Design’ opens in New York
The ‘Century: 100 Years of Type in Design’ exhibition opens today at the AIGA National…

Noted #59

14 April 2014
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Posters, Visual culture

Le Petit Néant, The Pitchfork Review, Please Come to the Show, Mould Map and Typolitic, a new site for undergraduate work
Here is a selection of things – magazines, exhibitions, books and posters – that caught…

Typographic freak-out

25 March 2014
Graphic design, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

Content Aware typography makes Adobe’s software ‘fail’ in the most interesting way
Content Aware Fill first appeared in Adobe Photoshop CS5, released in 2010, writes Tom Harrad…

Books received #7

16 March 2014
Book design, Graphic design, Magazines, Music design, Reviews

Pop Art Design, The Magazine 19, Punk 45, D&AD 2013 and REsolutions
Here are brief reviews of some titles that recently arrived at Eye’s Shoreditch office. Pop…

With a gun

19 January 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews

The Cuban OSPAAAL posters in Kemistry’s show pack a macho sense of déjà vu, says Colin Davies.
Walk into Kemistry’s OSPAAAL exhibition in Shoreditch and you might be hit by the Cuban…

Books received #5

2 December 2013
Book design, Graphic design, Reviews, Typography

Alphabet postcards, type geeks as ‘birders’, post-digital letterpress, understanding type basics and calligraphy
Here is a brief look at some type-oriented titles that recently arrived at Eye’s Shoreditch…

Design city in a hurry

18 November 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Reviews

Singapore’s graphic design story matches the city-state’s dramatic narrative, but this breathless overview leaves little time for reflection
In the introduction to Independence: The History of Graphic Design in Singpore since the 1990s…

Books received #4

1 November 2013
Book design, Graphic design, Photography

Biografiktion, Graffiti School, Travellers’ children, Tretchikoff, Soho divas and Xerography
Biografiktion (Nobrow Press, £18.99, $29.00) is a book of fictional stories about celebrities, set in…

Beasts and alphabets

16 October 2013
Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

The work of Enid Marx links two new exhibitions about animals at Compton Verney in Warwickshire
For designers and illustrators with an interest in print-making there is much to see in…

Collaboratively speaking

14 October 2013
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Posters, Reviews

A report from day two of the AGI Open conference at London’s Barbican.
Day two of AGI Open kicked off with insights and wisdom about ‘collaborative practice’, write…

A graphic tree-hug

10 October 2013
Graphic design, Illustration, Typography, Visual culture

Pulp!, a 1989 newspaper devoted to trees, drew attention to green issues through art, illustration, writing and photography
Pulp! was a one-off, large-format newspaper published in 1989 to raise awareness of pressing green…

Eye 86 in transit

30 September 2013
Graphic design, Magazines, Technology, Typography

Fresh off the rollers and over to the mailing house
The new issue, Eye 86, has been printed and is ready to be sent out…

Books received #3

5 September 2013
Book design, Graphic design, Photography, Visual culture

For the Love of Letterpress, Brighton Swimming Club, the history of CGI, Blackletter and Thomas Heatherwick
Here is a brief look at some titles that arrived at Eye’s Shoreditch office in…

Of mice and moquette

27 August 2013
Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

Image-makers go Underground to seek inspiration for the outer surfaces of Oyster card holders
Outline Editions, in collaboration with Designjunction, have commissioned ten designers and illustrators – including Noma…

See and hear

22 August 2013
Music design, Photography, Reviews, Visual culture

If you have an interest in the intersection of sound and visual culture and you’re…

Dance, light and architecture

14 August 2013
Music design, New media, Reviews, Visual culture

New Movement Collective inhabits a disused space with dance, architecture, light and sound
The prospect of combining contemporary dance with architecture, light installation and sound is an enticing…

A mag for Bob

6 August 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Visual culture

88 magazine lovers have made this one-off newsprint publication for a good cause – raising money to support mag maven Bob Newman
Last March (2013), art director Bob Newman suffered an appalling accident in a swimming pool…

Noted #54

5 August 2013
Graphic design, Magazines, Visual culture

Works That Work #2, Printed Pages #2, Desktop publishing, Presstival and some words for the London Design Festival
Here are a few publications and announcements that have grabbed our attention over the past…

Ink on paper

1 August 2013
Book design, Graphic design, Technology, Visual culture

Francis Atterbury’s Hurtwood Press takes a high-tech approach to publishing short-run books for photographers, designers and artists
Francis Atterbury’s Hurtwood Press is a new kind of publisher with a old name, writes…

Books received #2

31 July 2013
Book design, Design education, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

After Butler’s Wharf from the RCA’s CWAD graduates, Vapourware, Tractor Boys, Map of Days and Abram Games’s Penguin covers
Delete: A Design History of Computer Vapourware (Bloomsbury, £24.99) recalls the many failed prototypes of…

Riddle of the cube

23 July 2013
Design education, Graphic design, Typography

Established graphic designers struggle with the ‘white cube’ of a gallery space. How can emerging designers explain their work in the crowded environs of a graduate show?
Each year, graduating students of the Visual Communication course at the Royal College of Art…

Best in show

17 July 2013
Awards madness, Design education, Graphic design, Posters, Typography

Design through a typographic lens – a report from the TDC Awards in New York by Doug Clouse
The Type Directors Club annual competition captures a portrait of design in our time through…

Books received #1

14 July 2013
Book design, Design education, Graphic design, Reviews

The Roundel, quotes and quips, Various Small Books, interaction design and Unearthing
In the first of a new series of ‘Books received’ blog posts, here is a…

Destination design

8 July 2013
Book design, Design education, Graphic design, Information design

Several quite different summer schools take design education to Portugal, Lithuania and Sicily
Summer presents a chance to explore new destinations and starting this month, a number of…

Two sides of propaganda

28 June 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews

A new exhibition recounts the history of political persuasion, from coins to tweets.
The British Library’s exhibition, ‘Propaganda: Power and Persuasion’, shows a 1982 political cartoon that was…

Sinhala’s voluptuous letters

26 June 2013
Design education, Design history, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

A collaboration – between Columbo, in Sri Lanka, and Falmouth, in the UK – explores the typographic possibilities of the Sinhalese abugida
The orthography of the Sinhalese, one of the peoples of the beautiful island of Sri…

Sharing the stage … sharing ideas

24 June 2013
Critical path, Design education, Graphic design, Illustration

Five D-Crit students team up with experts to make presentations at their graduate symposium
It’s that time of year again, when a host of graduating art and design students…

Fag end

14 June 2013
Awards madness, Graphic design, Photography, Visual culture

We shouldn’t glamourise ‘de-branding’ as cool ‘anti-design’, says Alex Cameron. It’s simply against design.
In March this year, the Australian government’s ‘de-branded’ cigarette packaging design was one of fourteen…

Noted #53

27 May 2013
Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Visual culture

A magazine for Bob Newman; ‘Image Duplicator’; Erwin Blumenfeld at Somerset House; and Rémi Noël’s ‘This is not a map’
When French art director / photographer Rémi Noël goes to the States, he uses road…

Tear-off type walls in Berlin

20 May 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Reviews, Typography

The Bauhaus Archive presents a tour of German-language typographic history with ‘On-Type: Texts on Typography’.
They say that an exhibition should never be a book on a wall, but ‘On-Type’…

Mapping Asmara

1 May 2013
Design education, Information design, Photography, Visual culture

Steven McCarthy examines the way maps represent Eritrea’s capital city, Asmara – from architectural gems to military legacy
Unable to find a map of Asmara prior to my trip to Eritrea, apart from…

Noted #52

22 April 2013
Graphic design, Photography

Juggalos, Marmite, Thatcher, Fatherless, Dogs in Cars and Designs of the Year
A few awards, books and images that caught our attention in recent weeks. The Design…

Apocalyptic words

10 April 2013
Critical path, Design history, Graphic design

Do designers read and write? The Blunt conference aims to inject more writing into design education. Preview by Linda Kwon.
Graphic design is by and large a visual practice used as a tool in the…

Music design eye candy

3 April 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Posters, Reviews

Rich in reproductions and spanning a wide range of musical genres, Classic Rock Posters is…

AGI Open – the ‘graphic design World Cup’?

24 March 2013
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Illustration

The Alliance Graphique Internationale pulls out the stops for a two-day, student-oriented event at London’s Barbican this autumn
Last Wednesday saw a rare gathering of some of the UK’s most senior designers (David…

Noted #51

18 March 2013
Design history, Illustration, Magazines, Typography

Sign painters, film trailers, Nieves’ zines, Tom Gauld and Pencil to Pixel in New York
A few books, videos, zines and events that caught our eye … Spread from Sign…

Objects of desire

28 February 2013
Food design, Graphic design, Reviews, Visual culture

Designers have been engaged in sex since neolithic times. Well, maybe those neolithics were not…

Noted #50

27 February 2013
Graphic design, Magazines, Posters, Visual culture

Bastard chairs and other Works that Work; geometric rugs at the Design Museum; Strike!, posters, a standards manual & the first live Type Tuesday at St Bride in London
Last week we spoke to graphic artist Clayton Junior about his fair trade rug, launching…

Deadline EDA

24 February 2013
Awards madness, Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Magazines, New media, Posters, Typography

Get your skates on! Only a few days left to enter the 2013 European Design Awards
The submission deadline for the 2013 European Design Awards in Belgrade is fast approaching –…

Noted #49

11 February 2013
Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Typography

Scroll down; paper time capsule; Typography Summer School in two cities; design activism at the V&A; Sketchnotes; icons for data
A few objects, images and forthcoming events that caught our attention in recent weeks ……

Work to make it simple

6 February 2013
Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, New media

A review of this year’s Design of Understanding conference by Mark Barratt
‘Stuff that Max Gadney and his friends think is interesting’ would have been a more…

What type taught me about music

28 January 2013
Critical path, Design education, Music design, Typography

Rick Finlay recalls his time at Reading, a university education that was not about vocation, but ‘raw knowledge and research, and their applicability to whatever life throws at you’
As an undergraduate on the Typography course at Reading University around 1980 I found enough…

A dentist’s unerring eye

17 January 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Posters

Dr Hans Sachs was the poster aficionado who launched Das Plakat. By Graham Twemlow
Graham Twemlow writes: A large part of the Hans Sachs poster collection is about to…

The power of chess

7 January 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Visual culture

Chess – the gymnasium of the mind – is a perennial source of inspiration for designers, film-makers and artists, says Jim Sutherland
It’s no wonder chess holds such a fascination for artists, film-makers and designers, writes Jim…

Spiral-bound scratchpad

31 December 2012
Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

The 25th Anniversary edition of the Redstone diary assembles visual and verbal ephemera on the subject of ‘language’, from doctors’ private slang to erotic hand gestures.
The annual spiral-bound desk diary from Julian Rothenstein’s Redstone Press usually delivers a quirky collection…

Printer wonderland

14 December 2012
New media, Technology, Visual culture

‘A Printer’s Tale’, in London next Monday evening, looks at new ways in which the worlds of physical and digital can be plugged together
We’ve known for some time that, despite the unerring rise of digital technologies, print is…

Busy doing nothing

26 November 2012
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines

Le Petit Néant, a new annual drawing magazine, is designed to heighten ambiguity and avoid categorisation.
Le Petit Néant is an earnest name for a drawing magazine. French for ‘The Small…

Noted #46

22 November 2012
Graphic design, Typography

Schwitters, typewriting, wood type, the future Detroit Printing Plant and the United Stats of America
This past Friday the last British-made typewriter, the CM-1000, left the Brother factory in Wrexham…

Noted #45

26 October 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

Sneaker art, Coverthink on news design, Kerouac, Lubalin, letterpress and a letter from the Gentle Author.
This week in Noted: branding, editorial design, Kerouac’s scroll, letterpress, more Herb Lubalin and an…

The Bloomsbury set

24 October 2012
Book design, Graphic design, Reviews, Typography

De Bondt, Boom, Burrill, Butterick, Garland, Kubel, Scher and many more make Typo London 2012 a highly ‘Social’ affair. No question about it.
Typo London commenced with graphic designer Sara De Bondt’s fittingly understated introduction, writes Sarah Snaith…

Play to win

12 October 2012
Design education, Graphic design

What do design students get for their £9000 a year? Cascade is looking for ways to link education to an uncertain future in the world of work
A new academic year is an opportunity for anyone who works in education to re-assess…

The magazine that wasn't

10 October 2012
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Visual culture

Aspen, the cultural journal that challenged the limits of its form, goes on display at Whitechapel Gallery in London
To read an edition of Aspen magazine is to flip through a booklet, unfurl a…

Not drowning but waving

4 October 2012
Brand madness, Illustration, Visual culture

The National Poetry Day’s Piccadilly Circus display is a welcome drop of visual poetry in an ocean of brandspace
The big advertising displays of Piccadilly Circus have long been dominated by the big brands…

The purpose of posters

3 October 2012
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Posters, Visual culture

London Transport’s spare posters go under the hammer at Christie’s tomorrow.
‘Of course it's not about graphic design,’ said my friend, glancing at the high proportion…

‘Shake hands with the devil’

26 September 2012
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Reviews

The final hours of Graphic Design: Now in Production (the New York leg) provided a snapshot of contemporary practice, from the Stone Twins to Metahaven.
For the final Saturday of Cooper-Hewitt’s ‘Graphic Design: Now in Production’ exhibition in New York…

Noted #44, LDF #10

13 September 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

Graphic design and visual culture at the London Design Festival, 14-23 September 2012.
As the London Design Festival [LDF] enters its tenth year, the organisers are preparing to…

Slow hand

7 September 2012
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Typography

Three elective design courses at New Zealand’s CoCA demonstrate how the pace of physical printing helps the graphic design process.
The manual qualities of printing slow down the creative process, writes Nick Kapica, and provide…

Pause to play

6 September 2012
Graphic design, New media, Typography, Visual culture

Marcus Leis Allion hails Song Board – an interactive installation for King’s Cross commuters
This summer, as passengers rush through the new entrance to London’s King’s Cross Station to…

Billboards reloaded

30 August 2012

Judging by this digital project, reports of the death of the poster have been greatly exaggerated.
For four weeks this summer, roadside advertising specialists Outdoor Plus gave a small group of…

Reasons to change your name

28 August 2012
Graphic design, New media, Technology, Typography

Brighton’s September conference for coders and designers is back with a bang (but less Flash)
Every September since 2006, I’ve going to Brighton for the conference I founded, writes John…

Give us back our design!

17 August 2012
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Visual culture

East Germany’s biggest design archive is about to be put under wraps, inaccessible to scholars and the general public, writes Jessica Jenkins
In the period of political upheaval immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an…

Is the museum as dead as print?

13 August 2012
Reviews, Visual culture

‘Inside / outside’ – a symposium about the future of exhibition spaces at the new Tate Tanks – questioned the future of art institutions
The Tate Modern’s symposium ‘Inside / Outside: Materialising the Social’ marked the first weekend of…

Noted #40

22 July 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Typecache, marginal Brazil, mags with letters, Malick Sidibé’s studio
Here are a few more links that caught our attention in recent days. Typecache.com is…

One day, all this will be ours

26 January 2012
Design education, Design history, Graphic design, Information design, New media, Technology

Getting ready for the hyperbolic new Design Museum in Albertopolis.
The new Design Museum, slated to open in 2014, is cause for celebration in London’s…

Historical digital

20 October 2011
Design history, Graphic design, Music design, New media, Technology, Visual culture

Adrian Shaughnessey on the rise of laptop aesthetics … from 2003
What are the major stylistic trends in current graphic design? wrote Adrian Shaughnessey in Eye…

Design for drugs in NYC

7 October 2011
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

Exhibition will explore the graphic world of pharmaceutical products
A new exhibition at The Herb Lubalin Study Center at The Cooper Union will explore…

Awesomely awesome FOTB

16 September 2011
Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, New media, Reviews, Technology

Buzzwords and the inspiration of improv at the Brighton codefest
If you were to play buzz-word bingo at Brighton’s ‘Flash on the Beach’, the squares…

Crowded house of animation

15 June 2011
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, New media, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

‘Watch Me Move’ at the Barbican shows the medium’s waking dreams
Part art show, part spectacle, part viewing library, ‘Watch Me Move’, the new Barbican Gallery…

Ramble on

19 May 2011
Graphic design, Visual culture

Greece’s Design Walk returns with a lecture by Onlab in Athens
Last year’s Design Walk in Athens raised some thorny issues for Greek designers, writes John…

Get real. Go!

7 April 2011
Design education, Graphic design, Visual culture

Steven McCarthy wonders why US graphic designers don’t get out much
Where are the Americans? Why do international design conferences have such a low turn-out from…

Let’s work together

28 February 2011
Illustration, New media

The Mill Co. Project and the collaborative work ethic
Mill Co. bills itself as a ‘full service creative agency’ – yet the ‘Co.’ doesn’t…

Music tech mags from 1930

20 September 2010
Illustration, Magazines, Music design, Visual culture

New-media fundamentalists, circuit diagrams and a 22.5 lb ‘portable’
A kind neighbour dropped round with two music magazines published in June 1930: Gramophone and…

Athenian walkways

12 February 2010
Design history, Graphic design, Visual culture

Design Walk 2010 asks: where is this thing called ‘Greek design’?
Last week Eye was invited to take part in the fourth annual Design Walk in…

Money’s worth less than paper

9 July 2009
Graphic design, Posters, Typography, Visual culture

TBWAHuntLascaris finds a use for Zimbabwe’s useless trillions
The ongoing and all-encompassing crisis in Zimbabwe, the ailing Southern African state presided over by…

Teach them to network or be damned

3 February 2009
Design education, Graphic design, Technology, Visual culture

Deborah Littlejohn's Agenda from Eye 70 focuses on design education
In ‘I have nothing to declare but my networking skills’ (Eye no.70 vol. 18), Deborah…

Barack, Marvin and John. And Miles

27 January 2009
Music design, Photography, Posters, Visual culture

Now we have a world leader who looks like a visionary musician
Rageh Omaar, speaking on the BBC TV programme This Week, noted that it is easy…

The aesthetics of emptiness

11 December 2008
Photography, Visual culture

Pictures of empty and abandoned spaces in the US and Japan
Abandoned buildings and places have always invited photography. Derek Yates sent us this link to…

Letter to the editor

18 September 2008
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, New media

Re: Afterword to ‘Googling the design canon’ – don’t diss the digital
From Mike Kippenhan The idea of inviting a variety of people associated with design to…