Blog: Design history
13 November 2012
Type in Wapping
Pencil to Pixel opens up Monotype’s archive of typographic history, from artwork to artefacts
The ‘Pencil to Pixel’ exhibition, which opens this Friday at Metropolitan Wharf in London, gives…
7 November 2012
Something to say
The current vogue for letterpress is more than mere retro-nostalgia, writes Catherine Dixon in the run-up to Friday’s St Bride conference.
Letterpress is everywhere, writes Catherine Dixon (co-organiser of ‘Letterpress: Something to Say’). Once a boutique…
2 November 2012
Graphic design history to boot
Everything must go when Ian Anderson sells off the contents of The Designers Republic (TDR) archive in its Car Booty Affair in Sheffield.
At what point does the ephemera that is graphic design become collectable? When does a…
31 October 2012
The men with a movie poster
Eighteen works by the Stenberg Brothers (Vladimir & Georgii), including five original designs for posters, go under the auctioneer’s hammer on 1 November 2012.
In the wake of the Christie’s sale of London Transport posters (see ‘The purpose of…
29 October 2012
Giants of the visual imagination
While others struggle with ‘personal expression’, the Vignellis prove that a simple approach and focus makes great design, writes Quentin Newark.
Quentin Newark writes: As I was designing the catalogue for the Tate Modern exhibition ‘Albers…
10 October 2012
The magazine that wasn't
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…
3 October 2012
The purpose of posters
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…
26 September 2012
‘Shake hands with the devil’
liz farrelly
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…
12 September 2012
Information inspiration
Commercial Type’s Paul Barnes will give the annual Beatrice Warde lecture at St Bride Library.
Type design and lettering today stands atop of a pile of historical information collected over…
17 August 2012
Give us back our design!
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…