Feature

 

The designer as alchemist

Mazier Raein, James Souttar

This seventeenth-century book is a layered fugue for chemistry, music, words and pictures: rich inspiration for anybody wanting their multimedia creations to deliver genuine, all-round entertainment
 

Putting type in its place

Liz Farrelly

For many of London’s editorial designers, type plays a supporting role. Content and narrative is as likely to be found in the images as in the words
 

Live die eat cheat

Matthew Shadbolt

Behind the screen is a world where bullets and bodies defy mortality and gravity. A visual history of computer games from kindergarten to carnage
 

Reputations: Bruce Mau

Steven Heller

‘I think it is one of the paradoxical conditions of design authorship, that you have to be both producer and critic simultaneously. I can maintain a kind of double life.’
 

Theory in practice

Michael Worthington

Gerstner’s curious compendium is a dense brick of knowledge
 

In my honey’s loving arms

Daniel Nadel

R. Crumb’s portraits reveal a tender side to the self-confessed misogynist
 

Under the surface of style

Andrew Blauvelt

Designers and critics alike reject style as shallow and meaningless. But they overlook the complex ways in which its codes are used by different social groups.
 

Wechlin-Tissot & Co brochure

Max Bill’s brochure for a Zurich medical supplier shows a less formal side to his Concrete Art
 

Reputations: Dan Fern

Rick Poynor

‘A lot of illustration sits very awkwardly alongside the contemporary digital typography scene. It can look naive, almost folksy’