Feature
Total design
In its all too brief life, Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine achieved perfection
Techno cubists
Champions of the layered look, Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell wed theory and technological wizardry
Reputations: Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
‘Diversity and inclusiveness are our only hope. It is not possible to plaster everything over with clean elegance. Dirty architecture, fuzzy theory and dirty design must also be out there.’
Quentin Fiore: Massaging the message
The man who gave form to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ designed books that were both for and ahead of their time
Your system sucks!
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
Prints of Islam
In Syria and Beirut, craftsmen make inexpensive devotional images for the workplace and home
Max Bittrof: visual engineer
Max Bittrof was one of the leading German designers of the 1920s. Unlike many exponents of the New Typography, he was able to apply the aesthetic to a major commercial client
Stop making sense
The best-loved children’s stories are for adults too. Five American illustrators push at the boundaries of the book.
Video to go
Video packaging is an area of graphics both marginal and ubiquitous. Who decides how it looks?
Cult of the ugly
Designers used to stand for beauty and order. Now beauty is passé and ugliness is smart. How did we get here and is there any way out?