Eye Magazine | Author | John L. Walters

John L. Walters

Recent articles by John L. Walters

Phil Baines rememberedIssue 106, Summer 2024
Feature

                                            Friends and colleagues pay tribute to the influential British typographic designer, writer and teacher (and cycling enthusiast), who died in January [EXTRACT]            
Archiving the archiveIssue 106, Summer 2024
Feature

                                            When the Type Archive left its London premises, its vast collection was disbanded and its working Monotype hot-metal plant moved to the National Collections Centre. Two long-serving volunteers talk to Eye about the challenges they faced and how the history of the Archive is now being preserved. Photographs by Philip Sayer [EXTRACT]            
Reputations: Sharp Type, Chantra Malee and Lucas SharpIssue 106, Summer 2024
Feature

                                            Lucas Sharp: ‘The
only thing keeping me excited about being in this industry, and doing this
work, is the stuff I have yet to draw.’
Chantra
Malee: ‘We could have
sold the entire foundry but ... what are we
supposed to do for the rest of our lives?’ 
[EXTRACT]            
Editorial Eye 106Issue 106, Summer 2024
Opinion

                                            It is in the nature of an Eye type special issue to be full of the shapes of letterforms and images of letters.            
The film poster as freeze-frameIssue 105, Autumn 2023
Review

                                                Moving Pictures Painted: 200 Posters from the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema (CentreCentre, £30) lifts the…                        
Connecting a collectionIssue 105, Autumn 2023
Opinion

                                            A stylish pack of artist cards celebrates this German-Japanese collaboration. By John L. Walters            
Editorial Eye 105Issue 105, Autumn 2023
Opinion

                                            At a time when people are seeing Artificial Intelligence as either a get-rich scheme or an existential threat …            
Hockney asks the scientific question: ‘How?’Issue 42, Winter 2001
Review

                                                ‘The Great Wall’, four-page gatefold from Secret Knowledge. After all the rhetoric expended upon new collaborations…                        
Form and feelingIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            Rudolph de Harak gets the recognition he deserves in a new monograph by Richard Poulin [EXTRACT]            
Read this spaceIssue 104, Spring 2023
Review

                                                Catherine Griffiths: Solo in [ ] Space by Zhihua Duan with Catherine Griffiths is ostensibly the…                        
Ramp up the key strokesIssue 104, Spring 2023
Review
Keith Armstrong (1950-2017) aka ‘ruhuman’, earned a reputation for his typewriter art while still in his teens.
Attack of the book jacketsIssue 104, Spring 2023
Review

                                                Tupigrafia A-Z is the book of the Brazilian magazine Tupigrafia published by Claudio Rocha and Tony…                        
Resistance is essentialIssue 104, Spring 2023
Opinion

                                            Telegraf’s second issue embodies Ukraine’s creativity and courage in the face of the Russian invasion. Report by John L. Walters            
Jump cutsIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            Motion design is everywhere. The gleaming screens of our phones, TVs and poster sites demand more and more ways to make words and pictures dance in space and time. By John L. Walters             
Jump cuts: Dirk KoyIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            ‘It was a kind of experiment between control and coincidence, which is still an important part [of] the process in my work today’             
Jump cuts: Mitch PaoneIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            ‘It’s not a poster, you’re in a 360-degree universe you can play with. You’ve got to get out of the frame!’             
Jump cuts: Roy TerhorstIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                    
Jump cuts: Saskia MarkaIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            ‘It looks now like it was always the concept, but it was created from a necessity.’ [EXTRACT]            
Jump cuts: Matt WilleyIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            ‘Light gets turned into graphic dots – I thought this might be a nice way of capturing that feeling without being too literal or cheesy’             
Jump cuts: Fraser Muggeridge studio / Droga5Issue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                    
Jump cuts: Len LyeIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            ‘Motion is not an intellectual game. There is not a moment in life that’s empty of kinetic experience’ [EXTRACT]            
Editorial Eye 104Issue 104, Spring 2023
Opinion

                                            The urge to make static artwork that depicts movement has long been a human preoccupation.            
Time stretched further outIssue 103, Summer 2022
Feature

                                            We made this: Punkt’s design for David Sylvian’s photobook ERR            
WitnessIssue 103, Summer 2022
Feature

                                            Lucinda Rogers’ reportage drawings captured the urgent activism and human drama that surrounded Cop26, the 2021 Glasgow climate summit. By John L. Walters. Portrait by Jillian Edelstein            
Editorial Eye 103Issue 103, Summer 2022
Opinion

                                            It is commonplace to say that history is written by the winners, but the historical record needs to be challenged.            
Design for a better worldIssue 102, Autumn 2021
Feature

                                            Indian design duo November balances commercial practice with a commitment to social change. By John L. Walters            
Pop art before it was ‘Art’Issue 102, Autumn 2021
Review
Several chapters into this captivating how-to book, Joby Carter jokes about ‘carrying on the fairground tradition …
Type as art objetIssue 102, Autumn 2021
Review

                                                ‘At design school I became enamoured with typography,’ said Kris Sowersby to Mark Thomson in the…                        
Cool lists for dark daysIssue 102, Autumn 2021
Review

                                                Gilles Peterson is known for his unfeasibly large record collection and an unstoppable enthusiasm for Black…                        
Editorial Eye 102Issue 102, Autumn 2021
Opinion

                                            Are we are in ‘a new golden age of type design’?            
Word playIssue 101, Summer 2021
Opinion

                                            
	Sarah Boris’s letterpress collaboration with New North Press reflects the turbulence of 2020.            
Crowd controlIssue 101, Summer 2021
Feature

                                            Designers are making illustrated books through crowdfunding instead of traditional publishing methods. By John L. Walters            
Pictoglyphic time travelIssue 101, Summer 2021
Review

                                                If the concept of ‘designer and illustrator as author’ is worthy of close attention outside children’s…                        
Drawn from the capitalIssue 101, Summer 2021
Review

                                                London can be a hard city to love, but David Gentleman always finds good reasons, which…                        
Captain lithoIssue 101, Summer 2021
Review

                                                Barnett Freedman (1901-56) was an artist / designer from a Jewish immigrant family who grasped…                        
Editorial Eye 101Issue 101, Summer 2021
Opinion

                                                                            The grids and graphs of Covid-19 graphics are familiar to nearly everyone, even those who…            
Extinction Rebellion: Truth worksIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	Extinction Rebellion has grabbed the world’s attention with its imaginative, disciplined and urgent approach to graphic activism             
Malika Favre: GridlockedIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	A love of mathematics and geometry underpins the immaculate illustrations of Malika Favre            
Introduction Eye 100Issue 100, Summer 2020
Opinion

                                                                            For this issue, eleven prominent designers have generously given up time to talk about graphic design…            
Editorial Eye 99Issue 99, Autumn 2019
Opinion

                                                                            Eye has always been both a cultural journal and a business-to-business magazine. Though we value…            
Design odysseyIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

                                                Stanley Kubrick (1928-99) has long been the ultimate designers’ director, a man who presided over…                        
Business at the centreIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Feature

                                            
	An interview with Sascha Lötscher, managing partner of G+A            
Fritz Gottschalk and the Swiss-Canadian connectionIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Feature

                                            
	Gottschalk + Ash International spans more than five decades, a Swiss design studio with Modernist roots in Northern Europe and North America. Eye went to Zürich to meet the people behind the practice            
Art and ambiguityIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Feature

                                            
	The identity for Venice Biennale Arte 2019, designed by Melanie Mues, distorts type across a colourful three-dimensional grid            
Walker’s riddlesIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

                                                Tim Walker’s photographs are dispatches from a non-parallel universe. His images convey a glittering otherness…                        
They made CanadaIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

                                            Working against the clock, with virtually no budget, Greg Durrell made a design documentary that shows how European immigrants created Canada’s visual identity            
New bottle old wineIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

                                            
	Drawing on the punches, matrices, specimens and smoke proofs at St Bride Library, Commercial Classics give nineteenth-century typefaces a new lease of life. By John L. Walters            
Editorial Eye 98Issue 98, Spring 2019
Opinion

                                                                            When you visit St Bride Printing Library in London, or the living archive that is…            
Adventures  in the book tradeIssue 98, Spring 2019
Review

                                                Printing R-Evolution’ has been an unexpected public success, confounding expectations that the incunabula period of…                        
Return to the squareIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

                                            
	A chance discovery by some builders led to the adaptation and expansion of a 1930s alphabet by one of Switzerland’s foremost designers            
Waste notIssue 98, Spring 2019
Review

                                                For many years Vaughan Oliver was the in-house designer for the 4AD record label, creating…                        
The heart and soul of HarlemIssue 98, Spring 2019
Review

                                                The black-and-white Esquire photo of 57 jazz musicians (plus a few local children) posed in…                        
Shock and oral historyIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Review

                                                Ian Birch’s Uncovered: Revolutionary Magazine Covers is an entertaining browse through some of the most…                        
This woman’s workIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Feature

                                            
	Kate Hepburn’s design career, embracing pioneering magazines such as Spare Rib and Vole as well as comedy and rock’n’roll, is rooted in rigorous typography            
Anglo-Saxon latitudesIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Review

                                                The London transport maps designed by MacDonald (Max) Gill can be regarded as sitting in…                        
The art of small momentsIssue 96, Spring 2018
Review

                                                To call Chris Ware a genius seems obvious, banal, almost. So much praise has been…                        
Editorial Eye 96Issue 96, Spring 2018
Opinion

                                            
	Magazine special issue, part one            
The reviewsIssue 96, Spring 2018
Feature

                                            
	Evaluations by ‘trusted third parties’ are a mag staple, says John L. Walters            
Anatomy of a magazineIssue 96, Spring 2018
Feature

                                            
	Each magazine is unique. Happily, magazines are all alike, too. Here we analyse some of the elements that most mags have in common … the things that make them essentially ‘magazine-like’            
Editorial Eye 95Issue 95, Winter 2017
Opinion

                                                                            Last summer, during a visit to London, Triboro’s David Heasty made a strong case for…            
Hidden treasureIssue 95, Winter 2017
Feature

                                            
	Two hours from Paris, the historic printing house Imagerie d’Épinal is reborn as the heart of a contemporary French brand            
A sharp eye for Brazilian designIssue 95, Winter 2017
Review

                                                The short title of this exhibition – ‘Brasil Hoje’ [Brazil Today] – gives an idea…                        
Market forcesIssue 95, Winter 2017
Review

                                                Lucinda Rogers is a British reportage illustrator whose career has become intertwined with activism, working…                        
The crew with no nameIssue 95, Winter 2017
Review

                                                This ambitious exhibition throws light on a circle of artists and designers grouped loosely around…                        
Editorial Eye 94Issue 94, Summer 2017
Opinion

                                                                            The notion that graphic design is fundamentally a creative business, a form of art undertaken…            
A house that type builtIssue 94, Summer 2017
Feature

                                            
	Type foundry House Industries – the subject of a hefty new monograph and a retrospective exhibition near Detroit – champions the joyful vulgarity of United States graphic arts. Jason Godfrey and Dan Adams pay tribute            
Pleasure in the processIssue 94, Summer 2017
Feature

                                            Paul McNeil and Hamish Muir are graphic designers who construct typefaces through mathematics, systems and experimentation, pushing hard at the boundaries of alphabetic form            
Expressive geometryIssue 94, Summer 2017
Feature

                                            
	Kabel, Rudolf Koch’s eccentric, geometric 1920s typeface, has been revived as a 21st century type family by Marc Schütz. By Madeleine Morley, with extracts from Gerald Cinamon’s book about Koch            
GrignaniIssue 94, Summer 2017
Review

                                                ‘Franco Grignani: Art as Design 1950-1990’ at London’s Estorick Collection (5 July – 10 September…                        
Editorial Eye 93Issue 93, Winter 2016
Opinion

                                                                            Illustration and the power of the drawn image are at the heart of this issue…            
Soothing deadlinesIssue 93, Winter 2016
Review

                                                Christoph Niemann’s Sunday Sketching (Abrams, $40, £25) includes a few ‘greatest hits’ from his time…                        
Olivier Kugler: bearing witnessIssue 93, Winter 2016
Feature

                                            
	This contemporary illustrator uses his ears and eyes – plus a camera, digital voice recorder, sketchbook, pencil, scanner and laptop – to document stories of exile, displacement and the complex reality of refugees’ lives            
‘Because, history’Issue 92, Summer 2016
Review

                                                Despite its name, Typo Berlin, founded in 1996, has never been solely dedicated to type…                        
Time machineIssue 92, Summer 2016
Feature

                                            
	Each summer since 1973, artist Tom Phillips has taken photos of the same twenty places in his South London neighbourhood. The resulting artwork – 20 Sites n Years – is both conceptual art and social history            
Editorial Eye 92Issue 92, Summer 2016
Opinion

                                                                            In the feature ‘Tune out, dive deep, read on’, Riposte magazine founders Shaz Madani and…            
Editorial Eye 91Issue 91, Spring 2016
Opinion

                                                                            Every city resonates to the rhythms of the graphic marks made on its surfaces, from…            
Scissor actionIssue 91, Spring 2016
Review

                                                John Heartfield: Laughter is a Devastating Weapon (David King and Ernst Volland, Tate Publishing, £29.9…                        
Tightly cropped critiqueIssue 91, Spring 2016
Review

                                                The subtitle of James Clough’s generously illustrated Signs of Italy: Outdoor Lettering Up and Down…                        
Colouring in the cityIssue 91, Spring 2016
Feature

                                            
	Camille Walala’s exuberant, colourful designs for the Splice Post building bring warmth and vitality to London’s Old Street            
The case of Romek MarberIssue 91, Spring 2016
Feature

                                            
	The Polish-born graphic designer behind Penguin’s ‘Marber grid’ helped to define British postwar graphic design with work of great power and originality. His work can be seen in a touring exhibition, now in Krakow. Interview by John L. Walters. Portrait by Philip Sayer            
London LettersIssue 91, Spring 2016
Feature

                                            
	Philip Sayer photographs lettering on the streets of London in this alphabetical compendium            
Editorial Eye 90Issue 90, Summer 2015
Opinion

                                                                            The wider world’s interpretation of type and typography can be broad, vague, prejudiced, opinionated, highly…            
Nested narrativesIssue 90, Summer 2015
Review

                                                The Grand Budapest Hotel (Abrams, $35, £21.99) – the book of the film – comes…                        
Editorial Eye 89Issue 89, Winter 2014
Opinion

                                                                            Photography and illustration may be separate disciplines, but they are interwoven with design. The photo…            
We made this: Dorothy and OtisIssue 89, Winter 2014
Feature

                                            In 2009, Norman Hathaway and Dan Nadel arrived at an archive in Arizona to rediscover a legacy of graphic design left by Dorothy and Otis Shepard.            
Reputations: MuchoIssue 89, Winter 2014
Feature

                                            
	‘We were interested in working internationally, to learn from different cultures and to know how design behaves globally. We had international clients. But you really need people in those places to stay active. So the answer is sharing.’            
Powered flightIssue 88, Summer 2014
Feature

                                            
	For fifteen years, Pegasus, an international biannual corporate magazine designed by Derek Birdsall, led a charmed life.            
A small ‘M’ modern masterIssue 88, Summer 2014
Review

                                                The history of graphic design has many gaps and omissions, whether through shifting tastes, technology…                        
Editorial Eye 88Issue 88, Summer 2014
Opinion

                                                                            Publication design is a thread that runs through Eye 88. There’s the innovation in books…            
Luxury of less is moreIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

                                            
	‘Roundhead’ Sean Perkins explains North’s designs for restaurateur Alan Yau and the St Pancras Hotel            
Burger, fries, no logoIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

                                            
	With ‘nothing to show and nothing to say’, Ben Stott’s ‘anti-branding’ helped turn the Byron restaurant chain into a multi-million pound brand.            
Editorial Eye 87Issue 87, Spring 2014
Opinion

                                                                            What do we think about when we look at design for food and drink? This…            
We made this: A life in artefactsIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                Tom Dixon’s Dixonary (Violette Editions, £35) is a big book (632 pages) that is beautifully…                        
Towering ambitionIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                Audiovisual events that genuinely work are so rare that Brooklyn Babylon (Holland Festival, 24 June…                        
Violently opposed to warIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                Looking for images of ‘peace’ on the internet yields predictable and clichéd results, as Signs…                        
Editorial Eye 86Issue 86, Autumn 2013
Opinion

                                                                            This type special contains several examples of letters that lie some way off the usual…            
Reputations: Tony BrookIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Feature

                                            
	‘What other profession do you end up in where you learn so much about other people’s businesses than in graphic design? It’s remarkable. Clients will tell you everything. It’s like being a therapist. That’s really exciting. You never know what’s going to happen from one week to the next.’            
Editorial Eye 85Issue 85, Spring 2013
Opinion

                                                                            Anyone who creates something new – whether it’s an idea or an artefact – is…            
Man of lettersIssue 85, Spring 2013
Review

                                                For much of the past decade, illustrator Tom Gauld has been a regular contributor to…                        
Old school layoutIssue 82, Winter 2011
Feature

                                            
	Every fortnight, art director Tony Rushton and editor Ian Hislop lay out Private Eye in a way that’s hardly changed in 50 years            
Better than the real thingIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Review

                                                A recent exhibition at the Ikon gallery in Birmingham presented work by Pakistan-born UK designer…                        
Robin NicholasIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Feature

                                            
	‘I don’t see myself as a typeface designer. Hermann Zapf is a typeface designer. What I have done is to develop typefaces: pulling component parts of various typefaces that seem to work well and amalgamate those into a new design.’            
Alphabetical jazz soupIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Review

                                                The most ingenious editorial design element of Jazz Covers is its double spine: a trompe…                        
Dan Rhatigan: All about workflowIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Feature

                                            
	Monotype’s UK type director talks about the way the company’s 125-year history informs its approach to twenty-first century challenges.            
Editorial Eye 84Issue 84, Autumn 2012
Opinion

                                                                            The original Monotype was an ingenious piece of highly disruptive technology that caused the biggest…            
Psychedelic tractIssue 83, Summer 2012
Review

                                                The era of psychedelic art – from the mid 1960s to the very early 70s…                        
Devil in the detailIssue 83, Summer 2012
Feature

                                            
	Careful, even-tempered typographer by day – wild art director by night? For John Morgan, both the typographic detailing and the grand gestures are essential to each project’s unique ‘atmosphere’. By John L. Walters.            
Bible of babelIssue 83, Summer 2012
Review

                                                The 2012 European Design Awards, the winners of which were announced in Helsinki on 2…                        
Editorial Eye 83Issue 83, Summer 2012
Opinion

                                                                            Several recent issues of Eye have focused on type design, but this special puts the…            
Resonating image-makersIssue 29, Autumn 1998
Review

                                                The graphic scores of Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919-1994) date from the extravagant and exuberant period of…                        
Adventures in motion pictures. Narrative arcIssue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            
	Editorial photographer Lauren Greenfield on the jump from ‘essay form’ to story-telling            
Adventures in motion pictures. Aerial ballet of upholsteryIssue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            
	Matthew Donaldson’s high-speed ‘still life’ photoshoot with GTF for Kvadrat at Pinewood            
Illuminated thoughtIssue 69, Autumn 2008
Feature

                                            The practice is said to ‘signal a break with the past’ but GTF has an unforced ‘style’ that is impossible to copy            
Abbott Miller in the driving seatIssue 43, Spring 2002
Review

                                                A new phase for the visual culture magazine 2wice begins with this paean to the…                        
Reputations: Commercial TypeIssue 82, Winter 2011
Feature

                                            
	‘There has been typography on the Web for its entire existence, because there are words, and where there are words there is typography … Some people believe that there is going to be a radical change in the process of reading because of webfonts. Actually, no.’             
Reputations: Marian BantjesIssue 72, Summer 2009
Feature

                                            
	‘I’ve come close to working with a couple of agencies for very big brands, but either the money isn’t there or the agency just has a stupid idea that I’m not interested in working on. Like they want type with a bunch of bullshit curlicues coming off it. Yawn. Go away.’            
Hands-on design and digital angst at the AIGAIssue 58, Winter 2005
Review

                                                In past years the biennial conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) has…                        
A2’s type designIssue 67, Spring 2008
Feature

                                    
Reason and rhymesIssue 63, Spring 2007
Feature

                                            Can design for contemporary jazz, world and experimental music have a meaningful partnership with the musical content?            
The United Nations of TypeIssue 64, Summer 2007
Feature

                                            Look beyond the confines of the Latin alphabet, urges Johannes Bergerhausen of Decodeunicode.            
Reputations: John McConnellIssue 81, Autumn 2011
Feature

                                            
	‘By wanting to be intelligent, it usually gets simpler and simpler. The creative process is paring back all the time. If you can’t defend it, get rid of it.That’s what turns me on. How simple can you make it? Usually, “creativity” means showing off to your peer group, and creativity without intelligence is as dumb as it comes.’            
Art and art direction – Kuchar SwaraIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Feature

                                            
	The relationship between art directors and photography has developed in myriad ways alongside changes in fashion, taste and technology. Here we profile four very different practitioners: editorial designer Kuchar Swara, who collaborates regularly with photographers such as Nigel Shafran and Coppi Barbieri; Jens Gehlhaar (of directors’ collective Brand New School), who moves effortlessly between moving image campaigns, still photography and CGI; Thomas Lenthal, creative director for luxury fashion brands and his own magazine Paradis; and Daniel Eatock, whose approach to photography provides a provocative link between conceptual art and an objective, ‘vernacular’ approach to snapshot culture. All four have plenty to say about the place of photography and photographers in their working lives.            
The mystery of frozen locomotionIssue 75, Spring 2010
Review

                                                This exhibition explores the static, two-dimensional representation of movement. In the catalogue (and in his…                        
Reputations: Karsten SchmidtIssue 74, Winter 2009
Feature

                                            
	‘If we don’t take responsibility as makers we sacrifice everything sooner or later. We have the power! The people who create things, who make things work, we have the power. No politician has that.’            
All the flat boysIssue 82, Winter 2011
Review

                                                Michelle Cotton’s book, produced to accompany a Cubitt Gallery touring exhibition (see ‘From bombs to…                        
Black goldIssue 74, Winter 2009
Review

                                                If there can be such a thing as a revolutionary coffee table book, Freedom Rhythm…                        
Character studiesIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Feature

                                            Michael Johnson’s project to make a ‘phonetic typeface’ that English speakers can understand            
The digital reality of ‘emotional products’Issue 69, Autumn 2008
Review
Cover Art By follows on from the Sampler books as a valuable snapshot of current music design, but this time the content is more arcane …
Branches and rootsIssue 78, Winter 2010
Feature

                                            John L. Walters on the break-ups and tearful reunions of Rock Family Trees            
Pop Art’s moving targetFeature

                                    
NotedFeature

                                    
The Ed and Geoff showFeature

                                    
Turning clutter into goldFeature

                                    
Chalking and talkingFeature

                                    
Angola’s blank screenFeature

                                    
Gameshow naturalsFeature

                                    
Momo's nights, day by dayFeature

                                    
War draw and jawFeature

                                    
The empathy manFeature

                                    
Kings of the cheese-slicersFeature

                                    
Letters from BolognaIssue 64, Summer 2007
Review

                                                You could read the promotional material for this conference several times without getting a clear…                        
An A-Z of StyleFeature

                                    
Czech from scratchFeature

                                    
NotedFeature

                                    
All her own inventionIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            Graphic design’s recent concerns have for decades been at the heart of Laurie Anderson’s practice            
Beyond the canonIssue 68, Summer 2008
Feature

                                            Introduction to special issue by editor John L. Walters            
Over the rainbowIssue 75, Spring 2010
Feature

                                            
	From advertising to illustration; posters to badges; fashion shows to pop videos, the design work of Anthony Burrill has become quietly ubiquitous            
Polyphonic playgroundIssue 68, Summer 2008
Feature

                                            The world’s first museum of its kind, plus the ‘European Championship of Graphic Design’            
Food dye chromatographyIssue 57, Autumn 2005
Feature

                                            Stanley Donwood’s artwork for Matthew Herbert’s polemical album finds colour in chemistry            
VoiceFeature

                                    
What a geniusIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                At one time, Barney Bubbles seemed like the Zelig of graphic design, the man who…                        
Men behaving stylishlyIssue 79, Spring 2011
Feature

                                            Who would dare to launch a glossy men’s magazine during an economic crisis? The team behind Port discuss their new quarterly            
Make music visibleIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            Gerard Saint’s Big Active is on a mission to turn music into something tangible through art direction and design.            
Step and repeatIssue 70, Winter 2008
Feature

                                            Richard Rhys’s new foundry, which sells original patterns by designers and artists, gives a new twist to a timeless concept            
Cage recast as eye candyIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Review

                                                American composer John Cage was a prankster, a gameshow champion and a creator of graphic…                        
In the thick of itIssue 79, Spring 2011
Feature

                                            Morag Myerscough puts an eclectic graphic sensibility into public spaces, with colour, pattern and big type            
Adventures in motion pictures. ‘This is reality’Issue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            
	Tim Hetherington and Restrepo, the prize-winning documentary he made with Sebastian Junger            
A certain smileIssue 80, Summer 2011
Feature

                                            Sara De Bondt is a shaker and mover, who leads a studio with a decisively contemporary approach to identity design            
Interview with Dan FernIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            Professor Dan Fern explains his pioneering ‘MAP / making’ course at the Royal College of Art, London            
He has ways of making you readIssue 68, Summer 2008
Review

                                                Few novels have made use of graphic design for background or context, let alone made…                        
10,000 one offsIssue 80, Summer 2011
Feature

                                            Field’s 10,000 ‘illustrations’ for SEA’s GF Smith paper swatch give a new dimension to variable data printing            
On messageIssue 74, Winter 2009
Feature

                                            Content is king at Nicolas Bourquin’s Onlab, but its editorial focus incorporates visual delight and conceptual ingenuity.             
Fading away before the issuesIssue 41, Autumn 2001
Review

                                                This £400 one-day symposium aimed to instigate ‘an overdue overhaul of the very principles of…                        
David Pearson: inside outIssue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            The man who made series design fashionable (and profitable) at Penguin is also a publisher who relishes the ‘big puzzle’ of books.            
Shouting from the shelvesIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Review

                                                Faber and Faber, the independent British publisher founded in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber (there was…                        
Reputations: Paula ScherIssue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            ‘I am fascinated by organisations and the way people behave in power structures.’            
Slow printIssue 77, Autumn 2010
Feature

                                            Allow plenty of time to read Marian Bantjes’ highly personal book debut.            
Wanted: self-imagesIssue 66, Winter 2007
Feature

                                            A facial composite kit from the 1970s is the basis for an intriguing personal project            
Eine's walls: notes from a vandalIssue 65, Autumn 2007
Feature

                                            The summer of 2007 brightened up when Vandalism appeared in Holywell Lane            
Pin-sharp processIssue 64, Summer 2007
Feature

                                            GTF’s Tord Boontje monograph employs structural and decorative devices drawn directly from the product designer’s work             
Frank’s wild yearsIssue 68, Summer 2008
Review

                                                Had Robert Frank never opened another shutter after 1956, his reputation would be secure on…                        
The orderly chaos of James JoyceIssue 72, Summer 2009
Feature

                                            
	The blank canvas of a monthly flyer gave this graphic designer the opportunity to become a full time illustrator            
An Online DriftIssue 64, Summer 2007
Feature

                                            Five Eye commentators take a stroll along the highways and strip malls of contemporary cyberspace            
The book design complexIssue 75, Spring 2010
Review

                                                The annual one-day conference at St Bride Library in Bride Lane (off Fleet Street) has…                        
Big ideas and giant turkeysIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                The culture of ‘album cover design’ often runs in a kind of parallel universe to…                        
Reputations: David GentlemanIssue 78, Winter 2010
Feature

                                            
	‘I did absolutely anything that came my way, which I’ve done throughout my life. But what I know about design, as opposed to wood engravings or illustrating, I learned from stamps – my interest in refining an idea down to an absolute minimum.’            
Power of twoIssue 70, Winter 2008
Feature

                                            Clients who hire the company behind Five’s new identity always work directly with the main men             
Art and art direction – Daniel EatockIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Feature

                                            
	Daniel Eatock’s approach to photography provides a provocative link between conceptual art and an objective, ‘vernacular’ approach to snapshot culture.            
Sound and visionIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            Given the visceral feelings stirred by music, it’s time we found new, meaningful associations between music and design.            
Love lettersIssue 80, Summer 2011
Review

                                                Scripts, with a jazz-like mix of virtuosity and improvisation, can represent many things, from intimacy…                        
The Monograph as AtlasIssue 79, Spring 2011
Review

                                                In his slim but tactile volume I Swear I Use No Art At All: 1…                        
Fanfare for the common manIssue 79, Spring 2011
Review

                                                This book is neither biography nor visual monograph but an entertaining compilation that throws additional…                        
Type spaceIssue 78, Winter 2010
Review

                                                Supergraphics (Unit Editions, £25 + p&amp;p, only available from uniteditions.com) is a 320-page softback about…                        
OverprintingIssue 47, Spring 2003
Feature

                                            Statistics, expression, economy and a tactile display of the passage of time            
The Mechanical BrideIssue 27, Spring 1998
Feature

                                            Marshall McLuhan's 1951 analysis of advertising's unholy trinity of sex, death and technology            
ScoopIssue 30, Winter 1998
Feature

                                            A board game based on page layout, newspaper rivalry and editorial approval, who knows what strange ideas it gave to budding journalists and designers at an impressionable age            
Stephen Byram: art&designIssue 42, Winter 2001
Feature

                                            A New Yorker opts for content, tactility and the sound of surprise            
Reputations: Gerard UngerIssue 40, Summer 2001
Feature

                                            
	‘Papers have all kinds of information on the same page; very distressing and very joyful; gossip and facts. I wanted to bring that variety, that liveliness into the typeface design.’            
Reputations: Terry JonesIssue 30, Winter 1998
Feature

                                            
	‘I’m a creative director. I work with photographers. Years ago I said design is a piece of piss. Design is something that shouldn’t be complicated.’            
Paper planetIssue 78, Winter 2010
Feature

                                            Joost Grootens, whose background is in multimedia and architectural design, is reinventing the atlas for the 21st century            
Sound, code, imageIssue 26, Autumn 1997
Feature

                                            Postwar composers, such as Cage, Cardew and Crumb, have left an exuberant legacy of seductive graphic scores that still puzzle and fascinate the artists and musicians of today.             
Another self-indulgent design monographIssue 41, Autumn 2001
Review

                                                A wall of Stefan Sagmeister’s work / live apartment in New York bears the handwritten…                        
Revealing imagesIssue 82, Winter 2011
Review

                                                Bookshop shelves groan with giant compendiums of illustration, heavy on image, light on information or…                        
Reputations: Graphic Thought FacilityIssue 39, Spring 2001
Feature

                                            ‘It’s to do with keeping things simple and having the confidence to present an idea where everything can be understood. You don’t have to be in the know to unravel it.’            
Reputations: J. Abbott MillerIssue 45, Autumn 2002
Feature

                                            'We could be more aware of the civility of design, of how it can be constructive in a poetic sense, not just like a sneeze of capitalist excess’            
Port: Prêt à porterIssue 79, Spring 2011
Feature

                                            Jeremy Leslie, Port’s iPad app designer, explains his methods            
Britain’s signatureIssue 71, Spring 2009
Feature

                                            Margaret Calvert signed the UK – from road to rail to air. Now Henrik Kubel has digitised her Rail Alphabet            
Self-aggrandising, self-satisfiedIssue 38, Winter 2000
Feature

                                            
	Brochures: Frost, Push, Elliott Peter Earls, the Office of CC …            
Self-evident, self-motivated, self-perpetuatingIssue 38, Winter 2000
Feature

                                            Creative work by Experimental Jetset, Mother, Struktur and others             
Editorial Eye 82Issue 82, Winter 2011
Opinion

                                                                            After several special issues – on Berlin, music design, the designer-client relationship and our regular…            
Editorial Eye 81Issue 81, Autumn 2011
Opinion

                                            Designers and clients special issue.            
Editorial Eye 80Issue 80, Summer 2011
Opinion

                                            Eye 80 – celebrating two decades of graphic design and change            
Editorial Eye 79Issue 79, Spring 2011
Opinion

                                                                            One of the fascinating things about type is its dynamic nature. Take any era and there…            
Editorial Eye 78Issue 78, Winter 2010
Opinion

                                                                            Information design, the main focus of this issue of Eye, has given rise to some soul-searching…            
Editorial Eye 77Issue 77, Autumn 2010
Opinion

                                            Photography and the joy of publishing in Eye 77.            
Editorial Eye 75Issue 75, Spring 2010
Opinion

                                                                            We all work with words, whether we’re writers, bloggers, editors, Tweeters, curators or designers. And working…            
Editorial Eye 73Issue 73, Autumn 2009
Opinion

                                                                            This photography special issue is about the way photographs are commissioned, selected, edited, sequenced and otherwise…            
Editorial Eye 72Issue 72, Summer 2009
Opinion

                                                                            Last summer we tackled the canon of graphic design history in a special issue; this…            
Editorial Eye 70Issue 70, Winter 2008
Opinion

                                                                            Given the sophisticated times we live in, it is odd to note how often the…            
Eye Editorial 69Issue 69, Autumn 2008
Opinion

                                            The mood and structure of this issue is somewhat different from the last...            
Brought to LightIssue 69, Autumn 2008
Feature

                                            Editorial            
Editorial Eye 68Issue 68, Summer 2008
Opinion

                                            The beginning of a new era . . . and thanks!            
Editorial Eye 67Issue 67, Spring 2008
Opinion

                                                                            I don’t know about you, but the world of origami, with its ‘molecules’ and ‘bug…            
Editorial Eye 66Issue 66, Winter 2007
Opinion

                                                                            The revelation may not be earth-shattering, but it can be humbling: the solution is not always…            
Editorial Eye 65Issue 65, Autumn 2007
Opinion

                                                                            Talking about design is not the same as writing about design, and blogging is somewhere in…            
Editorial Eye 63Issue 63, Spring 2007
Opinion

                                                                            Whenever people ask how to get their work into Eye, I’m reminded of the ancient joke…            
Editorial Eye 62Issue 62, Winter 2006
Opinion

                                                                            My battered Collins dictionary lists nineteen meanings for the word ‘character’, noting that it comes from…            
Editorial Eye 61Issue 61, Autumn 2006
Opinion

                                                                            A few years ago, when interviewing Abbott Miller for Reputations (Eye no. 45 vol. 12) I…            
Editorial Eye 60Issue 60, Summer 2006
Opinion

                                                                            One of the ‘hidden themes’ that occasionally resonates through Eye’s pages is that of ‘life after…            
The Vignellis: a thoroughly Modernist marriageIssue 60, Summer 2006
Opinion

                                            Lella and Massimo Vignelli talk to Eye’sJohn L. Walters and Simon Esterson            
Editorial Eye 59Issue 59, Spring 2006
Opinion

                                            Relational aesthetics, advertising, type design, photography, identity and Richard Hollis; the editor attempts to summarise the latest issue            
Editorial Eye 58Issue 58, Winter 2005
Opinion

                                            The editor summarises the contents of the latest issue of Eye            
Editorial Eye 57Issue 57, Autumn 2005
Opinion

                                            The editor summarises the contents of the latest issue of Eye            
Editorial Eye 56Issue 56, Summer 2005
Opinion

                                            The editor summarises the contents of the latest issue of Eye            
Editorial Eye 55Issue 55, Spring 2005
Opinion

                                            The editor summarises the contents of the latest issue of Eye            
Editorial Eye 53Issue 53, Autumn 2004
Opinion

                                                                            Every now and then I run into an old acquaintance from my musical past – a…            
Editorial Eye 52Issue 52, Summer 2004
Opinion

                                                                            ‘Social vision’, Paul Rennie’s account of wartime industrial safety posters, many taken from his own…            
Editorial Eye 48Issue 48, Summer 2003
Opinion

                                                                            There are times when graphic design seems stuck in what Lorraine Wild called the Great Tao…            
Editorial Eye 47Issue 47, Spring 2003
Opinion

                                                                            There is a certain kind of urban store which in addition to stocking magazines and books…            
Editorial Eye 46Issue 46, Winter 2002
Opinion

                                                                            This ‘Australian special issue’ of Eye marks the first time that the magazine has chosen…            
Editorial Eye 44Issue 44, Summer 2002
Opinion

                                            Why Homer liked graphic design conferences            
Editorial Eye 39Issue 39, Spring 2001
Opinion

                                                                            An old German saying claims that the Devil hides in the details. Most designers, aligning…            
Editorial Eye 37Issue 37, Autumn 2000
Opinion

                                                                            The editors of a magazine featured in ‘Visual journalism’ (Eye no. 36 vol. 9), though…            
Editorial Eye 36Issue 36, Summer 2000
Opinion

                                                                            When El Lissitzky dreamt of the future in his 1926 essay “Our Book”, he may…            
Editorial Eye 35Issue 35, Spring 2000
Opinion

                                                                            Whenever there is a burning issue, be it the end of illustration or the ethics of…            
Editorial Eye 38Issue 38, Winter 2000
Opinion

                                                                            Anniversaries – the landmarks, jubilees and significant milestones favoured by journalists and broadcasters – should…            
Editorial Eye 33Issue 33, Autumn 1999
Opinion

                                            The first editorial by Eye’s new editor            
Editorial Eye 34Issue 34, Winter 1999
Opinion

                                                                            Though we have designated this edition a ‘Public realm special issue’, it could be argued…            
Editorial Eye 76Issue 76, Summer 2010
Opinion

                                            Introducing Eye’s first-ever music design special …            
Editorial Eye 45Issue 45, Autumn 2002
Opinion

                                                                            Though Eye 45 began its life as a ‘typography special', we thought it fairer –…            
Editorial Eye 43Issue 43, Spring 2002
Opinion

                                            Eye goes live            
Editorial Eye 49Issue 49, Autumn 2003
Opinion

                                                                            There is a moment in Adrian Shaughnessy’s profile of Angela Lorenz where the latter talks…            
Editorial Eye 71Issue 71, Spring 2009
Opinion

                                                                            This issue of Eye, a ‘type special’, celebrates a great era for the art, craft…            
Editorial Eye 64Issue 64, Summer 2007
Opinion

                                                                            There’s nothing like working on a quarterly magazine for giving one an acute sense of…            
Editorial Eye 42Issue 42, Winter 2001
Opinion

                                                                            The physical materials that make up a magazine are straightforward and predictable: there is no need…            
Editorial Eye no. 40, vol. 10 [full text]Issue 40, Summer 2001
Opinion

                                                                            Many designers and design writers have talked about the \'new simplicity\', an approach characterised by straightforward…            
Editorial Eye 41Issue 41, Autumn 2001
Opinion

                                            Eye’s second redesign in its ten-year history            

Recent blog posts about John L. Walters

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

Book now for Book night!

23 June 2022
Book design, Graphic design, Type Tuesday, Typography, Events and exhibitions

Buy your tickets for ‘Book night!’ – Eye’s next Type Tuesday – and help raise money for St Bride

Eye’s first Book night! will feature presentations by acclaimed designers Giles Dunn, Sonya Dyakova, Hugh Miller and Jim Sutherland, chaired by David Pearson and Eye editor John L. Walters

Silent sound

8 November 2021
Graphic design, Music design, Posters, Reviews, Visual culture

Chris Bigg’s ‘sketchbook’, Analogue Process 1987 – 2019, is a hymn of praise to ink on paper

Chris Bigg has enjoyed a close relationship with many musicians and music labels over his substantial career …

Come to the Eye 101 launch

3 June 2021
Book design, Design education, Design history, Food design, Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday

Please join Anette Lenz, Mario Eskenazi, Jim Sutherland & Elizabeth Resnick next Tuesday 8 June to celebrate Eye’s latest issue

The next Type Tuesday is a virtual launch party, designed to celebrate the publication of…

The printed howl

20 February 2021
Graphic design, Posters, Visual culture

Though locked down in London, this exhibition of letterpress protest posters has plenty of messages for the world

If the past few years have felt like one long trail of division, doom and…

Type Tuesday: Happy Birthday St Bride!

26 November 2020
Design education, Graphic design, Type Tuesday, Typography

Some of our favourite speakers return to celebrate the 125th anniversary of St Bride Printing Library on 1 December 2020

Eye magazine started organising Type Tuesdays as a regular St Bride Library event back in…

Twisted characters

1 October 2020
Design history, Graphic design

Hamish Smyth’s wordmarks for Gaslit Nation and Bellingcat are memorable graphic identities for organisations that fight populism and disinformation with solid research and truth. By John L. Walters

Hamish Smyth’s identity for the Gaslit Nation podcast is a smart piece of design for…

Sunday photo-painter

31 January 2020
Photography, Typography, Visual culture

In the early 1950s, Swiss designer Gérard Ifert walked the streets of Paris on quiet Sundays, taking pictures of the colourmen’s shopfronts

The ‘designer as photographer’ is a trope that has been much explored in articles, books…

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…

Being there

24 June 2019

Lucinda Rogers finds something rich and strange in the streets of New York. Her drawings will be the subject of a substantial book – if it gets the support it needs via crowdfunding

The city is both familiar from movies and books and utterly alien at the same…

Hacking Gutenberg

13 March 2019
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Type Tuesday, Typography

Eye’s Type Tuesday about 21st-Century letterpress featured Double Dagger, The Counter Press and Erik Spiekermann. A splendid time was had by all

Erik Spiekermann opened his talk at Type Tuesday on 5 March 2019 with some ruminations…

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…

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…

Independence day

10 April 2018
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Magazines, Type Tuesday, Typography, Visual culture

Over the past decade, Eye magazine has not only survived but thrived

Ten years ago, on 10 April 2008, Eye became an independent magazine, owned by the…

Music deco

25 February 2018
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Visual culture

‘Rhythm & Reaction’ gets under the skin of a British love affair with American jazz

Jazz first came to Britain as a visual and cultural style – rather than as…

Two tribes

27 November 2017
Awards madness, Critical path, Graphic design, Magazines

It’s always fun to win awards. But what do two wildly different ceremonies tell us about the state of magazine design, editing and publishing? By John L. Walters

Last week I attended two magazine awards ceremonies on two successive days. I don’t make…

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…

Books received #28 (music and visual culture)

6 September 2017
Book design, Graphic design, Music design, Photography, Visual culture

The design and look of music – from classical CDs and rave culture to stock (library) album covers and jazz photography

Here are some musically inclined books that came to our attention in recent months. Spread…

Felt-tip fundamentals

25 July 2017
Book design, Design education, Graphic design, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

Ink soaks into paper as Daniel Eatock’s mark-making processes result in a riot of colour

Designer and artist Daniel Eatock has a good-natured but unswerving way of reducing things to…

Brief encounters and the pleasures of ambiguity

16 June 2017
Design history, Food design, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, New media

Design, illustration, animation and anecdotes at Here London 2017

Here London, It’s Nice That’s annual conference, has become an established fixture on the design…

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…

Friendships and glue

30 May 2017
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

A book of scrapbook pages gives new insights into the world of illustrator Edward Bawden

Designer-illustrator Edward Bawden is remembered for a prolific career that embraced posters, book covers, illustrations…

Talented talent-spotter

17 January 2017
Book design, Graphic design, Magazines, Posters, Typography

Unit Editions’ second book about Herb Lubalin zeroes in on his ‘expressive typography’ and his gifted collaborators

Unit Editions’ Herb Lubalin: Typographer is a slimmer, more compact volume than the publisher’s popular…

Giancarlo Ilipriandi (1925-2016)

4 October 2016
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Posters, Typography

A recent interview with the distinguished and prolific Milan designer, who died on 15 September 2016 at the age of 91.

In the summer of 2015, Giancarlo Iliprandi came to London for the Fedrigoni-initiated exhibition Made…

Roger Perry’s London letters

10 March 2016
Book design, Design history, Typography, Visual culture

A ‘replica reissue’ of The Writing on the Wall’, designed by Pearce Marchbank, delivers a gritty slab of mid-1970s graffiti

The Writing on the Wall (Plain Crisp Books) is a recent, Kickstarter-financed ‘replica reissue’ of…

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…

Pop justice

30 September 2015
Illustration, New media, Reviews, Visual culture

The curators of ‘The World Goes Pop’ have scoured the globe for overlooked and under-appreciated artists from a moment when art collided with the mass media

It is hard to dislike ‘The World Goes Pop’ (Tate Modern), with its mad visual…

Illustrated gumbo

27 August 2015
Book design, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

A children’s picturebook about jazz musician Trombone Shorty brims with positive vibes

The story of children’s picturebook Trombone Shorty is a familiar one, writes John L. Walters…

The freedom principle

19 August 2015
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Visual culture

Thierry Noir channels the improvisatory spirit of Berlin in ‘Jazz’ at the Howard Griffin Gallery

Thierry Noir is the street artist’s street artist, painting outdoor surfaces (famously the Berlin Wall)…

Was, is & will be

29 June 2015
Graphic design, Typography

For its 160th anniversary, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph unveils a new masthead, crest and typefaces

Some news outlets have a hard time staying in business for more than a generation…

Observer’s post

15 April 2015
Design history, Illustration, Reviews, Visual culture

Watercolours by Eric Ravilious at South London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery

With its verdant gardens, mausoleum (with sarcophaguses) and a smart tea-room, the Dulwich Picture Gallery…

Full bleed

13 February 2015
Book design, Music design, Typography, Visual culture

The catalogue for Glenn Ligon’s Come Out evokes the power and brutal claustrophobia of Steve Reich’s 1966 tape composition, first made to raise legal expenses for the Harlem Six.

The catalogue for Glenn Ligon’s Come Out is a picture book full of words, based…

AK and A23D on press

18 September 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Technology, Typography

Two 21st-century letterpress projects breathe new life into this arcane, antiquated but much-loved method of mark-making

The LDF’s opening graphic weekend featured plenty of stimulating events and fascinating displays, with workshops…

Design for eating: Milton Glaser

15 July 2014
Food design, Graphic design, Illustration, Typography

Milton Glaser recalls working with an inspirational client – the great New York restaurateur Joe Baum (1920-98). Interview by John L. Walters

New York designer Milton Glaser has long been associated with design for food and drink…

Poster engineer

8 July 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews

Naomi Games profiles the life and work of her father Abram Games in this recent book from the Antique Collectors’ Club

Flaubert once wrote that when one writes the biography of a friend or relative, one…

Type on the tongue

20 December 2013
Food design, Typography, Visual culture

Eye’s panel checks out the taste of Helvetica, Impact and Comic Sans (as cooked up by Sarah Hyndman)

Designer Sarah Hyndman is known for her Type Tasting workshops – popular events at Pick…

Comp up the volume

18 December 2013
Posters, Reviews, Typography, Visual culture

A loud new book pays tribute to the Colby Poster Printing Company of LA and their clients, from artists to junk dealers

This new book is a riotous feast of posters produced in recent decades by the…

Insanely integrated, day one

12 November 2013
Design history, Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

Despite its vague theme of ‘The fluidity in-between …’, the Integrated2013 conference in Antwerp was sharp and entertaining

The biannual Integrated conference organised by Hugo Puttaert, can seem bewilderingly complex at first glance…

The gospel of Dave

30 October 2013
Book design, Food design, Illustration, Music design, Visual culture

Graphic Renaissance man Dave McKean sings two of his Nine Lives and launches Sandman Overture at Foyles’ 3rd floor gallery

Dave McKean is a prolific illustrator, film director, animator, designer and self-publisher – the bearded…

Whodunnit?

23 October 2013
Book design, Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines

Last few days to catch the exhibition ‘Romek Marber: Graphics’ at the Minories in Colchester.

If you live within a few hours of Colchester in Essex, I strongly recommend a…

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…

Cover story

8 August 2013
Brand madness, Graphic design, Magazines, Photography, Posters, Visual culture

You’ve seen that face before. But why is Jeanne Moreau (as seen in La Notte) staring soulfully from the cover of Eye 85?

The cover of the current issue, Eye 85, has attracted lots of (largely welcome) attention…

Babylon aan ’t IJ

12 July 2013
Illustration, Music design, New media, Reviews

Brooklyn Babylon, a multimedia spectacular by Darcy James Argue and Danijel Žeželj, raises the roof at the Holland Festival

In the critic’s lexicon, there are few terms more problematic than ‘multimedia’, writes John L…

Chair man

19 June 2013
Magazines, Photography, Reviews

London’s Estorick Collection shows the work of Giorgio Casali, the photographer who framed Domus’s modernist dream

The Estorick Collection is one of London’s smaller galleries, just a short walk from Highbury…

Jazz in print

14 November 2012
Graphic design, Music design, Photography, Typography

Matt Willey’s sumptuous brochure for UK radio station JazzFM evokes a golden age of magazine and LP sleeve art direction.

Jazz and radio came of age around the same time, the 1920s, when ‘physical music’…

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…

The Olympic press gang

26 July 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Magazines, Photography

Editorial designers get into the fast lane to deliver print for the Games

One big, but largely unsung design challenge of the 2012 Olympic Games has been the…

Type Tuesday: Reputations

3 July 2012
Graphic design, Magazines, Technology, Typography

Commercial Type’s Christian Schwartz & Paul Barnes – interviewed in Eye 82

‘There has been typography on the Web for its entire existence, because there are words…

Music, flesh and fantasy

21 June 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Reviews, Visual culture

When Mati Klarwein’s hyperactive paintings stole the psychedelic show.

Mati Klarwein is best known for a handful of album covers in the very early…

Sonorama panorama

12 June 2012
Magazines, Music design, New media, Technology

A French magazine that put a new light (and spin) on musical multimedia

This June issue of French magazine Sonorama includes reports from the Cannes film festival, writes…

Type Tuesday: West coast ghosts

29 May 2012
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Music design, Typography, Visual culture

This Emigre type specimen celebrates a lost era of LPs and recording studios

I once heard someone dismiss a former boyfriend with the put-down, ‘he’s the sort of…

Full tilt

11 May 2012
Music design, New media, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

Glass & Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach liberates the space-time continuum.

Though I missed the UK premiere* of Einstein on the Beach by Robert Wilson and…

Clicks and sparks

27 April 2012
Information design, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

data.anatomy – Ryoji Ikeda’s new audiovisual installation in Berlin

Ryoji Ikeda’s work quivers somewhere between electronic music, digital art, installation and performance, writes John…

Blue notebook

19 April 2012
Book design, Music design, Photography, Reviews

David Wild’s Jazzpaths is a personal and poetic ‘photomemento’

David Wild’s Jazzpaths is labelled a ‘photomemento’. It is a carefully printed hardback collection of mid-1960s…

Javier & Fernando & Bebo

25 February 2012
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Technology, Visual culture

Mariscal’s full length movie Chico & Rita is in the running for an Oscar

As this weekend’s 84th Academy Awards ceremony brings the season of movie awards madness to…

Getting away with murder

2 February 2012
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Photography, Reviews, Typography, Visual culture

Good, bad and ugly cover ‘tributes’: a new spin on the death of music design.

The album cover may have lost its mojo as far as contemporary culture is concerned…

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…

The ‘Ziggy Stardust’ moment

14 November 2011
Design education, Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Visual culture

Snapshots of the final annual two-day St Bride conference ‘Critical Tensions’

There was a ‘Ziggy Stardust’ moment right at the end of last week’s ‘Critical Tensions’…

Type Tuesday: Private Eye

18 October 2011
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Technology, Typography

Matthew Carter’s timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine

Tony Rushton has been art director of satirical magazine Private Eye for 49 of its…

Who’s who

4 October 2011
Book design, Graphic design, Illustration, Information design, Posters

High-octane graphic design in Barcelona for AGI Open

AGI Open is a high-octane assemblage of graphic designers with international reputations, performing to a…

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…

Canapés, alcohol and tea in Iran

7 June 2011
Awards madness, Book design, Graphic design, Illustration

Olivier Kugler wins the top prize at the V&A Illustration Awards 2011.

Awards ceremonies tend to follow a familiar pattern, writes Eye editor John L. Walters. Plenty…

Fixed compass

20 March 2011
Design history, Graphic design, Typography, Visual culture

David Gentleman talks about his identity design for British Steel

The most recent issue of Eye includes a Reputations interview with David Gentleman, whose career…

Port of entry

24 February 2011
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Typography, Visual culture

Two art directors and an editor launch a brand new men’s magazine

You could be forgiven for thinking that the cold Spring of 2011, with its cutbacks…

The app of A Humument

16 November 2010
Book design, Illustration, New media, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

‘The iPad is one of the oldest things in the world ... a pad or a slate.’

Tom Phillips’ A Humument is an artists’ book made by defacing (and hence deconstructing) an…

Sound and vision #1

9 November 2010
Music design, New media, Visual culture

Time to find some new, meaningful associations between music + design.

Think about design for music, and record covers spring to mind, writes John Walters. (See…

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…

The cover that never was

6 May 2010
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines

Is Chris Ware’s rejected cover for Fortune 500 right on the money?

The world of graphic design is full of images that never were, writes John L…

Text without type

3 February 2010
Graphic design, New media, Typography

Building Sound: can a website work with just speech, space and colour?

Here’s an interesting sound-based concept – a website that has no type or lettering whatsoever…

Fine words for Kitching / Stothard

19 November 2009
Design education, Graphic design, Posters, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

Breathing life into the dying embers of letterpress … to light graphic fireworks

The great thing about spoken tributes, when they’re done well, is that they give the…

Never mind the music

11 November 2009
Awards madness, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Photography, Visual culture

Your chance to vote for the best of 2009’s vinyl sleeve art

Formats come and formats go (and MP3s are going the way of cassettes now that…

The right lines

30 October 2009
Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Posters

iwant’s illustrative identity for the London Jazz Festival

Album covers may be a dying art, but design for live music is thriving, writes…

Frontline’s big, bold newsprint

27 July 2009
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

A quality, quarterly broadsheet made by moonlighting journalists

Sitting next to a self-absorbed Telegraph reader on the train last week I was reminded…

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…

Reasons to be cheerful, part 2

18 December 2008
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Music design, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

A message from Barney Bubbles in the small print? Or just Ian?

I received an exciting package through the post the other day, a mint copy of Ian Dury’s ‘What A Waste’

Happy go lucky local goes out in style

4 December 2008
Graphic design, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

John Ross’s photo book of pub regulars, lovingly designed by Browns

British pubs close down all the time. But few of these closures are marked by…

MAP/making’s acid test

28 November 2008
Graphic design, Illustration, Magazines, Music design, New media, Photography, Reviews, Technology, Typography, Visual culture

Music, art and performance in action at the Royal College

What is it about the last Thursday in November in London, asks John L. Walters…

Guy Le Querrec in Africa

19 November 2008
Music design, New media, Photography, Typography, Visual culture

Encores for Magnum photographer at the London Jazz Festival

We’re halfway into the London Jazz Festival, and the annual event has already delivered three…

Quantum of Croydon

31 October 2008
Design history, Magazines, Visual culture

Living in a box between the flyover and the market

I’ve always been amused by scientific references in titles, writes John L. Walters (and as…

The hero of Flight 404

24 October 2008
Graphic design, Illustration, New media, Technology, Visual culture

Synaesthesia, auto-changers and the final trip: Robert Hodgin at FOTB

Flight 404’s Robert Hodgin has worked out the ideal format for his life – as a…

Kyle Cooper

15 October 2008
Graphic design, Typography, Visual culture

Graphic design and typography go to Hollywood

You have to hand it to Kyle Cooper, writes John L. Walters. The celebrated movie…

‘You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?’

11 October 2008
Graphic design, Magazines, Photography, Visual culture

New York Magazine celebrates 40 years plus with a handsome special

The 40th anniversary issue of New York has all the ingredients that non-New Yorkers expect.

Showbiz kids

7 October 2008
Graphic design, Reviews, Visual culture

There are no originals in ‘Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms’

If Andy Warhol had lived to see the proliferation of cheap, flat screens that makes…

Record design framed

22 September 2008
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Photography, Reviews, Visual culture

Does ‘Spin’ reduce graphic design to the level of art on a wall?

The Spin exhibition is small, free, easy to find (if you’re in or near London)…

The internet loves kittens

9 September 2008
New media, Technology, Visual culture

Elbow, Crusha and the communicative power of small furry animals

I thought I was going to be the warm-up man for Ian Anderson, writes John…

Cutting crew

8 September 2008
Graphic design, Magazines, New media, Technology

Wallpaper* strives to keep its edge with guest eds and die-cuts

Print can still do lots of things you can’t do online, and one of the…

Two degrees of (colour) separation

5 September 2008
Design history, Graphic design, Illustration, Posters

Graphic Rolling Stones artefacts are saved for the nation

It began with a letter – addressed to the designer at the Royal College of…

Chalk and talk

26 August 2008
Graphic design, New media, Reviews, Technology, Visual culture

‘A Recent History of Writing & Drawing’ at the ICA

It’s not an obvious design or art exhibition – more like an interactive playroom from…