Blog: Design history
24 March 2013
AGI Open – the ‘graphic design World Cup’?
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…
21 March 2013
Journey to the endless archive
Future Everything launches with a downloadable collection of essays that explore the ideas behind ‘digital public space’
Future Everything, just opened in Manchester, is tackling the issue of ‘public space’ in the…
18 March 2013
Noted #51
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…
7 March 2013
Wanted: space for posters
In the wake of last week’s V&A symposium, two attendees make an impassioned plea for the foundation of a British poster museum.
For more than two centuries the poster has occupied public space on hoardings, building sites…
21 February 2013
Lubbock’s brilliance
During his lifetime, the prickly, uproarious brilliance of Tom Lubbock’s writing on art was a…
25 January 2013
Back when the future looked bright
A printed guide to the 1951 Festival of Britain prompted Nigel Ball to consider the value placed on design by governments – then and now
Not seeing the value of investment in design is a folly of the current British…
17 January 2013
A dentist’s unerring eye
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…
13 January 2013
Back on the market
Prewar posters from the legendary collection of Dr Hans Sachs will soon go on sale at a New York auction house
A sale of 1250 prewar posters from Dr Hans Sachs’s legendary collection will take place…
7 January 2013
The power of chess
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…
10 December 2012
Sun-cheese wheel-ode
Dom Sylvester Houédard’s 1968 concrete poetry tribute to fellow poet Ken Cox is a double spiral of hand-set type, mysteriously linked by the sport of cheese rolling. Fraser Muggeridge explains.
The letterpress printed concrete poem designed by Dom Sylvester Houédard first caught my interest because…