Eye Magazine

Sarah Snaith

Recent articles by Sarah Snaith

Reputations: Mario EskenaziIssue 101, Summer 2021
Feature

	‘Here in Europe everything was more formal, more rigid, and American design was freer, fresher. I…
Elaine Ramos: The book designerIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

	‘We overdose on communication, but “beautiful” design circulates only between the culturally…
Yes we can changeIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

	Sunny Dolat, co-founder of The Nest Collective, at What Design Can Do México…
      
Swiss fresh airIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

	This modest book is the first to cover the long career of Swiss graphic…
      
Pay it forwardIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

	Rubén Fontana devised a system for teaching typography that is grounded in Argentina’s culture and…
Type now: Independence and originalityIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

	The following three articles address several issues that are facing type…
      
The business of type designIssue 98, Spring 2019
Feature

	The challenges of earning a living from type design, with honest, thoughtful responses from…
Reputations: Gail BichlerIssue 96, Spring 2018
Feature

	‘Our content is hard to come by. You are designing in real time about world events. The freedom we…
We Made This: Technical challengeIssue 95, Winter 2018
Feature

	Sarah Snaith talks to Briar Levit, director of a new film on the history of graphic design
Stuck in neutralIssue 94, Summer 2017
Review

	The scope of Mapping Graphic Design History in Switzerland is expansive. The…
      
Advice from a mentor you may never meetIssue 94, Summer 2017
Feature

	The ethos behind the Hall of Femmes series is to pass down stories, advice and experiences to a…
Industrialised folk artIssue 93, Winter 2017
Review

	Alexander Girard ‘brought together what the modern had once separated:…
      
When the camera nearly always liesIssue 92, Summer 2016
Review

	The Tate Modern’s ‘Performing for the Camera’ began with Yves Klein’s famous…
      
Wit, bad taste and loud typeIssue 91, Spring 2016
Feature

	The photos of legendary graphic designer Robert Brownjohn show an outsider’s view of 1960s London…
      
Four seasonsIssue 90, Summer 2015
Feature

	Micha Weidmann’s art direction for a cookbook by London chef Ollie Dabbous, with photographs by…
Ring-bound to rule them allIssue 90, Summer 2015
Review

	Manuals 2: Design & Identity Guidelines (Unit Editions, £75) follows Unit…
      
Dance on the spotIssue 89, Winter 2014
Feature

	Abbott Miller’s iPad contemporary dance apps for the 2wice Arts Foundation – a dynamic coming…
Critical heat on the Aegean coastIssue 89, Winter 2014
Feature

	A workshop in a remote Turkish village gave international students a chance to explore what…
Raw like sushiIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

	Alternative food zines scramble the conventions of magazine design to make a more authentic…
Cup challengeIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

	David Hillman’s photographic designs for Dragonfly changed the look of tea packaging
Violently opposed to warIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

	Looking for images of ‘peace’ on the internet yields predictable and clichéd…

Recent blog posts by Sarah Snaith

Ideas to the fore

6 May 2020

A recent Spanish-language book champions South American designers in a typographic format that foregrounds their thoughts about practice

Books about Argentinian design are rare, as are books that more broadly consider and contextualise Latin American design for readers within or outside the region, writes Sarah Snaith.

Spirit of the Paraná

2 July 2019

Graphic artist Alan Berry Rhys brings the ‘river monsters’ and creation myths of Argentina’s Paraná River to London

Last week Argentinian graphic designer and illustrator Alan Berry Rhys brought a vision of the Paraná River to Central London.

ModMag17: Part two

20 November 2017

The second instalment of Sarah Snaith’s report from the fifth annual Modern Magazine conference in London

Writer and podcaster Liv Siddall kicked off the afternoon of the ModMag17 conference with a raw and comical look at her tenure as editor of Rough Trade magazine.

ModMag17: Part one

10 November 2017

Sarah Snaith reports from the fifth annual Modern Magazine conference

The fifth annual Modern Magazine conference, initiated and curated by magCulture founder Jeremy Leslie, took place this year at London’s Conway Hall. The speaker line-up reflected a wide array of approaches to publishing presented by art directors and editors who head up magazines young and old – from Migrant Journal (about to release issue three) to Japanese magazine Popeye, founded in 1976, writes Sarah Snaith.

Faithful dress

1 January 2017

The latest publication from GraphicDesign& is an illustrated spotters’ guide to nuns’ habits. Review by Sarah Snaith

Looking Good: A visual guide to a nun’s habit is full of interesting facts for a curious mind, writes Sarah Snaith.

Dancing glyphs

9 October 2015

Franchise Animated – a collaborative project from Dutch foundry Animography – uses the skills of 110 motion designers. By Sarah Snaith

Kinetic typography is not new — it is used in advertising, for film and television title sequences, infographics, music videos and logos – but it is rarely sold as a complete product, as a pre-animated typeface for commercial use, writes Sarah Snaith.

Ghosts of the ghetto

8 June 2015

Photographer Henryk Ross risked his life to bear witness to the Holocaust. By Sarah Snaith

The Art Gallery of Ontario is showing a selection of salvaged photographs taken by Jewish photographer Henryk Ross in the Łódź Ghetto in Poland during the Second World War. ‘Memory Unearthed’ offers a rare glimpse into Jewish life during this horrific period in history, showing both everyday life and human suffering, writes Sarah Snaith.

Mounted, not sprayed

5 February 2015

International street artists ‘map their spaces’ on the walls of London’s Somerset House

‘Mapping the City’, featuring 50 artists, occupies the New Wing of Somerset House, a space in transition that features bare concrete floors, fireplaces in disrepair and unfinished stonework doorways, writes Sarah Snaith.

Plus is more

7 December 2014

The cover of Unit Editions’ Type Plus highlights the book’s arguments, writes Sarah Snaith.

Of monumental proportions

30 May 2014

Lettering Large is a graphic designer’s coffee table book, easily read in one sitting but worth revisiting regularly, writes Sarah Snaith.

Reading in reverse

30 April 2014

The Art Gallery of Ontario is showing works on paper, and other media, by American sculptor Bruce Nauman

The Art Gallery of Ontario’s glass and titanium ribcage (which spans 600 feet) breathes out in the heart of Toronto. Inside, ‘Bruce Nauman’s Words on Paper’, an exhibition of work from the 1970s and 80s, spreads across two quiet rooms on the gallery’s first floor, writes Sarah Snaith.

Type traces in Granary Square

5 April 2014

‘Lettering: Objects, Examples, Practice’ is the first exhibition of its kind at Central Saint Martins’ Kings’s Cross premises

The ‘Lettering: Objects, Examples, Practice’ exhibition, at Central Saint Martins’ Lethaby Gallery, displays traces of lettering history and the traces former students and faculty have left on the college and its student body, writes Sarah Snaith.

Type on the tongue

20 December 2013

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 Me Up and London Design Festival this year. For Hyndman’s latest project, A Taste of Type, she has reversed the approach by asking, ‘what does type taste like?’

Out of the shadows

19 December 2013

The Gentle Author delivers an album of London past and present in time for Christmas

The long hours of darkness that signify the encroaching winter can cast an unfavourable light on East London, writes Sarah Snaith.

On the water, off the wall

6 December 2013

Lawrence Weiner’s typographic and gestural drawings fill the lower gallery of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum

‘Written on the Wind’ (Op de Wind Geschreven) is an exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum of more than 300 works on paper by the conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, alongside short films, notebooks and gestural markings in the work and on the walls, writes Sarah Snaith.

The power of type

22 November 2013

Unit Editions’ book Type Only documents graphic design – from the late 1990s to the present – that primarily uses typography to illustrate and communicate ideas, writes Sarah Snaith.

Tactile tendrils and funhouse therapy

2 September 2013

‘Touch and Tweet!’ at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk encourages visitors to interact and leave their inhibitions behind

The Stedelijk Museum’s ‘Touch and tweet!’ exhibition in Amsterdam, featuring works by Daan Roosegaarde and Hellicar & Lewis, encourages visitors to interact with the installations, writes Sarah Snaith.

Dance, light and architecture

14 August 2013

New Movement Collective inhabits a disused space with dance, architecture, light and sound

The prospect of combining contemporary dance with architecture, light installation and sound is an enticing one – it recognises the natural relationship between body, sound, image and space, writes Sarah Snaith.

Private fears of public speaking

3 June 2013

A report from day two of the inaugural Point conference in London

Conference themes are often loosely interpreted by speakers and the themes themselves leave space for interpretation, writes Sarah Snaith in the second of two reports from the conference (see John O’Reilly’s ‘Talking about the A-word’ on the Eye blog).

Museum of lights

15 May 2013

Thomas E. Rinaldi’s New York Neon documents a cityscape sprawling with the remnants of illuminated signage. Rinaldi shies away from ‘spectaculars’ in familiar places such as Times Square in favour of the ‘open-air museum’ of on-premise storefronts across Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, writes Sarah Snaith.

A graphics hoopla

20 April 2013

Pick Me Up festival: one part exhibition, one part fun fair

Pick Me Up, the annual graphic arts festival at Somerset House, showcases a mixture of international illustrators, graphic novelists, cartoonists and graphic designers, writes Sarah Snaith.

Tween zine

28 March 2013

The Loop is a newsprint magazine that brings the news to life for children aged eight to thirteen

Children’s magazine The Loop has a deceptive strapline: ‘The magazine that thinks it’s a newspaper’, writes Sarah Snaith.

Node weaving

4 March 2013

The Design Museum highlights a fair trade collaboration between Western illustrators, designers and craftspeople from Nepal

On 5 March 2013, the Design Museum shop will launch a collection of illustrated rugs produced by Node, a non-profit social business working with Nepalese carpet weavers, writes Sarah Snaith. Founded by children’s book author / illustrator Chris Haughton and Kathmandu-based entrepreneur Akshay Sthapit, Node (from the Latin for knot) aims to connect fair trade with design.

Neighbourhood watch

7 February 2013

Jean Jullien’s ‘Allo?’ opens tonight at Kemistry Gallery with a sideways look at the here and now

French graphic designer Jean Jullien opens his first solo exhibition at Kemistry Gallery in Shoreditch tonight (7 February 2013), writes Sarah Snaith.

The stars stare back in Scotland

19 January 2013

The Edinburgh exhibition ‘From Death to Death’ looks at mortality, the body, dolls, guilt and other shadows of the mind.

The exhibition ‘From Death to Death and Other Small Tales’ hangs contemporary and historically significant works side by side to force ‘confrontations between past and present’ (in the words of the exhibition’s curators) in a variety of media, writes Sarah Snaith.

Sticky fingers

5 December 2012

A new book by Marion Deuchars inspires children to get stuck in and make marks that are truly digital

Marion Deuchars’ Let’s make some great fingerprint art is the latest in her series of books that inspire children to explore artistic practice. The book has the appeal of a half-finished sketchbook, begging for inky fingers and paint-covered hands to fill its pages, writes Sarah Snaith.

Broadway the art way

19 November 2012

Tate Modern’s two-part retrospective juxtaposes two artist-photographers: William Klein and Daido Moriyama.

The Tate Modern’s exhibition ‘William Klein + Daido Moriyama’ is introduced with projections of primary coloured New York city street signs, writes Sarah Snaith.

The Bloomsbury set

24 October 2012

De Bondt, Boom, Burrill, Butterick, Garland, Kubel, Scher and many more make Typo London 2012 a highly ‘Social’ affair. No question about it.

Typo London commenced with graphic designer Sara De Bondt’s fittingly understated introduction, writes Sarah Snaith.

The view from Here

5 October 2012

Typography, generosity, jelly and body architecture (with a side order of unexplained nudity) at It’s Nice That’s ‘creative symposium’

In mid-September, It’s Nice That (see Eye 82) held their first creative symposium at The Royal Geographic Society in South Kensington, writes Sarah Snaith.

Stripes and teasers

24 September 2012

In ‘Hide and Seek’ at London’s Kemistry Gallery, illustrator Malika Favre delights in playing with our optical expectations.

Illustrator Malika Favre’s first solo exhibition ‘Hide and Seek’ at London's Kemistry Gallery hinges on a series of optical effects, writes Sarah Snaith. Sultry female figures peek out from behind gloved hands, Venetian blinds and over balconies, delighting the viewer who can undo their visual trickery.

Newsprint appetiser

4 September 2012

Current food trends meet photography and art direction in Ico’s giveaway foodie mag

Last month, London agency Ico Design published the first edition of Taste, a newsprint publication that expressed the consultancy’s growing interest in the future of food, writes Sarah Snaith.

At first bite

22 August 2012

A new food and culture journal, The Gourmand, gives design-conscious readers something to get their teeth into …

The Gourmand, a new food and culture journal, hinges on the way food brings people – especially creative people – together, shaping their conversations, writes Sarah Snaith. The launch party, at Vauxhall’s Brunswick House Café, did much the same.

Is the museum as dead as print?

13 August 2012

‘Inside / outside’ – a symposium about the future of exhibition spaces at the new Tate Tanks – questioned the future of art institutions

The Tate Modern’s symposium ‘Inside / Outside: Materialising the Social’ marked the first weekend of ‘The Tanks: Art in Action’ exhibition, a series of immersive installations and performance art pieces on display until 28 October 2012, writes Sarah Snaith.

Thought for food

16 July 2012

Do graphic designers have an appetite for the challenges of food design?

The ‘International Conference on Designing Food and Designing for Food’ was a two-day event, held at London Metropolitan University last month, writes Sarah Snaith.

Every which way

9 July 2012

Abbott Miller’s iPad app gives a new framework to contemporary dance

Fifth Wall, an iPad app designed by Abbott Miller for 2wice Arts Foundation, presents an enticing new platform for the performing arts, writes Sarah Snaith.

Untitled tiles

27 June 2012

There’s a pattern to Rob Lowe’s ‘Details’ exhibition at Kemistry Gallery

Rob Lowe has covered the walls of London’s tiny Kemistry Gallery with an array of untitled artwork, writes Sarah Snaith.