Eye Magazine | Author | Steven Heller

Steven Heller

Recent articles by Steven Heller

Philadelphia freedomIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            Pentagram’s Luke Hayman has given The Philadelphia Inquirer an overhaul. By Steven Heller [EXTRACT]            
Letterform Archive: Objects of InspirationIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	Letterform Archive is feeding the post-digital generation’s passion for physical artefacts            
Milton Glaser: Design eminenceIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	‘Buttons, flyers, posters, postcards, T-shirts and books. How primitive are the means we have to dissent. And yet I believe these modest tools can help change history.’             
Françoise Mouly: The illustrator’s art editorIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	‘The covers are meant to capture the moment, but we want them to make sense next week, next decade, in a hundred years!’             
Big idea, small footprintIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

                                                New York’s Mmuseumm is not a freak show but rather a show of freaky, poignant…                        
Signs of the timesIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Review

                                                Every few years or so, a choice handful of illustrator / designers make a splash…                        
Guilt, abstractedIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Feature

                                            
	Nora Krug’s graphic memoir explores the
	impact of the Second World War – and the Nazi regime – on German families            
For the love of food and printIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Feature

                                            
	Michele Outland, creative director of Bon Appétit, also co-founded and designs the indie mag Gather Journal. Steven Heller reports            
From cover to coverIssue 96, Spring 2018
Review

                                                Originally used to protect book bindings, dust jackets were often discarded before a book was…                        
The anti-RockwellIssue 95, Winter 2017
Feature

                                            
	Blechman pioneered a less-is-more aesthetic. His scratchy shorthand expresses ideas with a punchy surprise            
A 2D man comes to lifeIssue 95, Winter 2017
Review
This gutsy new book by Paul Sahre is a candid narrative about a graphic designer – a two-dimensional practitioner.
Crayon gameIssue 93, Winter 2016
Feature

                                            
	The unexpected craze for adult colouring books has created a bonanza for publishers. Can they keep it going?            
The ‘bookness’ of booksIssue 93, Winter 2016
Review

                                                Hundreds of books about books have been published during the past century. A complete bibliographic…                        
Dreaming in ColorsIssue 91, Spring 2016
Review

                                                In the ‘about’ section on the Colors website, you can see a sepia-tone photograph of…                        
Love songs for PianoIssue 90, Summer 2015
Review

                                                In her photographs and brief text for Office Romance (Aperture, $29.95, £19.95, designed by Jon…                        
Unpacked baggageIssue 88, Summer 2014
Review

                                                Is any contemporary illustrator a household name today? Not in the same way that Norman…                        
Leftovers with a bad tasteIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

                                            
	In the past century the use of ‘trade characters’ built brand loyalty while reinforcing stereotypes            
Raw and radicalIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                The ‘underground press’ died out more than 40 years ago. Yet it lives on, thanks…                        
Surfing a 1960s California waveIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                Having spent a week alternately prancing and slogging through John Van Hamersveld’s career-capping monograph, I…                        
The physics of sittingIssue 85, Spring 2013
Review

                                                Brian Lutz’s Eero Saarinen: Furniture for Everyman will appeal to all designers – as much…                        
Turn of the ScrewIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Review

                                                ‘Sex sells!’ was a 1960s motto. Though not as popular as ‘Peace now’, ‘Make love…                        
Miss FixitIssue 83, Summer 2012
Feature

                                            
	Tina Roth Eisenberg never had a business plan. But all the things she dreams up – the Swissmiss blog, ‘creative mornings’, stick-on tattoos – pay off. By Steven Heller            
Signs of life under an iron fistIssue 83, Summer 2012
Review

                                                Graphic design histories are, in large part, harvests of unearthed images and anecdotes. Every time…                        
Hergé’s adventures in the world of graphicsIssue 69, Autumn 2008
Review

                                                I frequently have lunch at a Belgian café in New York called Le Petite Abeille (the…                        
The theatre that Swarte builtIssue 49, Autumn 2003
Review

                                                On April 30 1995, the Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte was miserably tossing around on his…                        
Design as a matter of life and deathIssue 56, Summer 2005
Review

                                                When I was at Valley Forge Military Academy during the mid-1960s my second favourite subject (after…                        
Reputations: Alex SteinweissIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            
	‘I got this idea that the way they were selling these albums was ridiculous. The covers were just brown, tan or green paper. I said, “Who the hell’s going to buy this stuff? There’s no push to it. There’s no attractiveness. There’s no sales appeal.” So I told them I’d like to start designing covers.’            
Gnomic utterancesIssue 75, Spring 2010
Review

                                                There is nothing new about artist’s books composed from pieced together, ironically juxtaposed snippets of…                        
Found MasterIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                I first came across N. P. de Koo while researching my own Dutch Modern (Chronicle…                        
Murket forcesIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                Despite my admiration for Naomi Klein’s No Logo (2000), it ultimately served only to increase…                        
It is what it isIssue 53, Autumn 2004
Feature

                                            Scott Stowell’s Open brings innovation, style and plain speaking to broadcast design            
How to write a Modernist’s obituaryIssue 67, Spring 2008
Review

                                                History is continually being made, but that does not mean all history will be written. What…                        
Crumb’s graphic sweepingsIssue 41, Autumn 2001
Review

                                                Crumb has been the comics’ deity for me since the early 1960s when I saw…                        
Moderne timesIssue 61, Autumn 2006
Feature

                                            Why has France’s influence upon European graphic design been underestimated and neglected?            
Drawing aside the veil over TehranFeature

                                    
TASS’s take on a tumultuous century [extract]Feature

                                    
Paper tigers [extract]Feature

                                    
Credits where dueIssue 68, Summer 2008
Review

                                                How do you make God laugh? Make plans! How do you make your publisher cry…                        
Jan the preacher manFeature

                                    
The alchemistIssue 60, Summer 2006
Feature

                                            Animator Jeff Scher uses dense, unorthodox techniques to make his highly original, image-rich films            
Eisner puts straight an anti-semitic slanderFeature

                                    
When Andy got his sticky fingers on an album . . .Issue 71, Spring 2009
Review

                                                Andy Warhol (1928-87) is the artist who will not die. His life and work helped…                        
Sex and pulp and rock’n’rollIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                In 1952, US Congressman Ezekiel C. Gathings singled out pocket-sized, mass-market paperbacks as being for…                        
Better than the real thing?Issue 73, Autumn 2009
Feature

                                            Facsimiles give scholars and students the chance to enjoy, understand and literally get to grips with the physical nature of printed design classics.            
Stereotyping for pictures, power and profitIssue 62, Winter 2006
Review

                                                Stereotyping was the name given by the French printer Fermin Didot in 1794 to his…                        
MoMA’s must-have book of booksFeature

                                    
Face to face with the Afrikan written traditionIssue 53, Autumn 2004
Review

                                                Contemporary graphic and typographic design histories are mostly America-centric or Euro-centric. Despite a few books…                        
Genteel rebels of PhiladelphiaFeature

                                    
New frontierIssue 68, Summer 2008
Feature

                                            When art director Art Paul made the journey from Bauhaus to Hefner’s Playboy mansion, men’s mags became truly ‘Modern’.            
Modernism and me: a survivor’s taleIssue 59, Spring 2006
Review

                                                On reading the first few pages of Natalia Ilyin’s Chasing the Perfect: Thoughts on Modernist…                        
Keepers of the flameIssue 80, Summer 2011
Feature

                                            US picture magazines of the late 1960s and 70s are still a vital source of inspiration            
Once upon a time...Issue 69, Autumn 2008
Feature

                                            … there was a Big Bad President. How satirists use children’s tales to puncture the huffing and puffing of politicians            
Buy this bookIssue 58, Winter 2005
Feature

                                            Jürgen Holstein’s volume of rare Weimar-era jackets and covers is an extraordinary labour of love            
Storytelling giantIssue 72, Summer 2009
Feature

                                            Everything Christoph Niemann makes, from visual blogs to picture books, reveals his witty, literate personality            
Religion’s universal message (board)Issue 57, Autumn 2005
Feature

                                            World religions put their faith in the standard quarter-inch grooved changeable letter board            
Who’s zooming whom?Issue 41, Autumn 2001
Review

                                                Almost twenty years ago, when I first saw Hungarian illustrator Istvan Banyai’s portfolio, he was…                        
Form follows performanceIssue 28, Summer 1998
Feature

                                             Richard Saul Wurman, FAIA, is an architect, cartographer and the author and designer of more than 60 books. He founded the TED conferences, which “focus on the merging &amp; converging of the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design”. Wurman coined the term “Information Architecture” in 1976 when he was chairman of the national convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and devised the theme “The Architecture of Information”.            
Boy’s Own inventionsIssue 82, Winter 2011
Review

                                                American Heritage, a hardcover quarterly, was my favourite magazine in the 960s for its beautifully…                        
Erotic fantasies of a proto-GothIssue 71, Spring 2009
Review

                                                If you like Roland Topor, the mid-twentieth-century French Surrealist illustrator and visual commentator, you’ll love…                        
Mighty penIssue 68, Summer 2008
Review

                                                Political cartoons are rarely covered in graphic design histories. The reason may have something to…                        
Recalling the Vignelli experienceIssue 54, Winter 2004
Review

                                                ‘In the early 1950s,’ begins Massimo Vignelli in the first chapter of this visual monograph…                        
Beyond BlackletterIssue 79, Spring 2011
Feature

                                            The lettering on the covers of Germany’s most popular film magazine expressed plot and tone with exuberant, readable forms.             
Testament to tenacityIssue 81, Autumn 2011
Review

                                                Hitler knew that without the Soviet Union threatening his flank, he could march on Eastern…                        
A place in the sunIssue 65, Autumn 2007
Feature

                                            An Art Deco warehouse in Miami Beach throws unexpected light on the dark arts of design            
Telling and sellingIssue 7, Summer 1992
Feature

                                            Cooper Black is one of the emblematic typefaces of the twentieth century. Who was the man behind the face?            
Taking a scalpel to the dictatorsIssue 80, Summer 2011
Review

                                                John Heartfield is credited with having invented ‘political photomontage’ but an equally prolific fotomonteur was…                        
Mini-museums, little magazinesIssue 79, Spring 2011
Review

                                                There has been considerable recent interest in ‘little magazines’ from the 1960s to the 80s…                        
From dump to designer bookshelfIssue 79, Spring 2011
Review

                                                It seems antithetical to the DIY fanzine ethos for a book about the subject to…                        
Joyously tasteless art directionIssue 78, Winter 2010
Review

                                                Allow me to get something off my chest. Of the two jobs I once most…                        
Cartoon knowledgeIssue 76, Summer 2010
Review

                                                I have known Jules Feiffer, the cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter and novelist, for 25 years. So…                        
Comic sans the grown-upsIssue 74, Winter 2009
Review

                                                There are two names responsible for bringing comics ‘out of the trash and into a…                        
Spaniards’ worksIssue 73, Autumn 2009
Review

                                                When I was researching my Deco España: Graphic Design Between the Wars (Chronicle Books) in…                        
A new kind of storyIssue 51, Spring 2004
Feature

                                            
	An interview with pictorial magazine pioneer Stefan Lorant (1901-97). By Steven Heller            
Advertising: mother of graphic design [extract]Issue 17, Summer 1995
Feature

                                            The word ‘advertising’ makes designers cringe. But it is central to the profession’s history and practice            
Reputations: George LoisIssue 29, Autumn 1998
Feature

                                            
	‘You can’t research a big idea. The only ideas that truly research well are mediocre ideas. In research, great ideas are always suspect.’            
Back after these messages: the No. 17 showIssue 39, Spring 2001
Feature

                                            
	With Number Seventeen, their New York design practice, Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler have acquired a reputation for dancing letterforms and emotionally resonant, playful graphics that speak directly to TV viewers who haven’t yet turned into their parents            
Designing heroesIssue 43, Spring 2002
Feature

                                            Every era creates heroic imagery that conforms to its specific needs            
Darkness visibleIssue 20, Spring 1996
Feature

                                            Amy Guip reconciles commercial image-making with a need to explore more personal themes            
Big ideas that built AmericaIssue 22, Autumn 1996
Feature

                                            In the 1950s and 1960s, American art directors led a creative revolution. Thier secret weapon was the Big Idea            
The man who invented graphic designIssue 23, Winter 1996
Feature

                                            When W.A. Dwiggins called himself a graphic designer, he coined the phrase that would define professional practice            
[Sutnar]Issue 13, Summer 1994
Feature

                                            
	Born in Czechoslovakia, Ladislav Sutnar was a pioneer of information design. Working in America in the years after the war he synthesised European avant-gardisms into a functional commercial lexicon, made Constructivism playful and used its geometry to forge the dynamics of catalogue organisation. ‘The designer must think first, work later,’ Sutnar declared. His writings — in which the bracket was a favourite motif — are as timely today as his designs.            
Eyes on the worldIssue 26, Autumn 1997
Feature

                                            They are obsolete now, but the picture magazines of the pre-TV era were breeding pens for today's visual narratives            
Scrap merchantsIssue 27, Spring 1998
Feature

                                            Peter Giradi's practice creates digital landscapes composed of detritus scavenged from the wastleland of traditional media            
Lessons in printing trade journalismIssue 31, Spring 1999
Feature

                                            For one issue, under Jan Tschichold’s stewardship, a monthly trade journal, Typographische Mitteilungen, became a beacon for radical typography.             
Stories unfolding in time and spaceIssue 31, Spring 1999
Feature

                                            With a revival of journalistic visual essays in US magazines, illustrators are once again becoming integral contributors to the editorial mix            
Smartest letterer on the planetIssue 45, Autumn 2002
Feature

                                            Chicago’s comic book hero has a finely tuned gift for hand-lettering            
Writing on the wall: The posters of James VictoreIssue 30, Winter 1998
Feature

                                            
	With a visual polemic of angry scrawls that stop pedestrians in their tracks, this committed New Yorker tackles Shakespeare, safe sex and racism in personal (frequently self-financed) projects that hammer home graphic design’s potential to make a difference            
ErosIssue 25, Summer 1997
Feature

                                            In 1962 Ralph Ginsburg and Herb Lubalin defied puritantical America with the four issues of their erotic magazine Eros            
Gothic horrorIssue 62, Winter 2006
Feature

                                            The Nazi party’s obsession with cultural dominance extended far into calligraphy, lettering and type            
Sue Coe: eyewitnessIssue 21, Summer 1996
Feature

                                            The New York-based artist makes ferocious images as instruments of social change. Her timely new book is a searing indictment of animal butchery.            
Reputations: Michael BierutIssue 24, Spring 1997
Feature

                                            
	‘The biggest challenge that faces a designer isn’t the quest for novelty, but coming to grips with the fact that much of what we do has little content’            
Multi-coloured mirrorsIssue 57, Autumn 2005
Feature

                                            Alan Aldridge’s art direction of Beatles lyrics gave a graphic twist to the Swinging Sixties            
Reputations: John PlunkettIssue 28, Summer 1998
Feature

                                            
	‘We wanted to avoid the unspoken design taboo: Good design = subtle, tasteful, elegant, restrained. My feeling about that is: maybe so . . . depends on the context. We felt it was more important that Wired be alive than subtle . . .’            
Look awayIssue 38, Winter 2000
Feature

                                            
	‘The South’, Seymour Chwast’s special civil rights issue of Push Pin Graphic, was a virtuoso display of graphic design authorship            
Art directing the oppositionIssue 16, Spring 1995
Feature

                                            
	Daniel Walsh, former US Marine, founder of Liberation Graphics and self-styled ‘communications therapist,’ uses the poster to argue for alternative points of view            
Dr Leslie's type clinicIssue 15, Winter 1994
Feature

                                            Through its publications and gallery, the Composing Room promoted the new American design            
Reputations: Maira KalmanIssue 47, Spring 2003
Feature

                                            
	‘I was out walking the dear dog and I saw 500 things that made me want to make art.’            
The meanings of typeIssue 50, Winter 2003
Feature

                                            The back-stories, informed by trends, cults, philosophies and nationhood            
Mr RoughcutIssue 32, Summer 1999
Feature

                                            or: how graphic designer Pablo Ferro learned to split the screen, cut the crap and tell the story (in the time it took to run the titles)            
A terrible beautyIssue 49, Autumn 2003
Feature

                                            
	The atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud has become the logo of annihilation            
Designing demonsIssue 41, Autumn 2001
Feature

                                            
	The rhetoric of hate provides ‘a new kind of meaning’            
Reputations: Bruce MauIssue 38, Winter 2000
Feature

                                            
	‘I think it is one of the paradoxical conditions of design authorship, that you have to be both producer and critic simultaneously. I can maintain a kind of double life.’            
Comics for damned intellectualsIssue 8, Autumn 1992
Feature

                                            
	It is ten years since Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman impetuously founded Raw Books and Graphics. Since then, Raw, the couple’s alternative comic strip magazine, has provided an outlet for talented unknowns, given new significance to the term ‘graphic novel’, almost single-handedly reinvented one of America’s most popular indigenous artforms – all on a shoestring budget.            
Born modernIssue 10, Autumn 1993
Feature

                                            Painting is dead, long live the dustjacket. Alvin Lustig brought modern art into American bookshops            
Fast track songlines for typeIssue 75, Spring 2010
Opinion

                                            Steven Heller on Gail Anderson’s SVA class in typographic animation            
RepossessionIssue 74, Winter 2009
Opinion

                                            After years of wrangling, the posters that the Nazis stole from Hans Sachs are to be returned to his heirs. But would they be better off in a Berlin museum?            
Cult of the squigglyIssue 72, Summer 2009
Opinion

                                            Over-abundant embellishment is spiralling out of control. Time to get out the shears, cries Steven Heller.            
The 'L' WordIssue 66, Winter 2007
Opinion

                                            
	Not all designers are liberals. But you’d never know it from design conferences. Or the pages of Eye…            
What do we call ourselves now?Issue 63, Spring 2007
Opinion

                                            In a world of brand specialists and information architects, is it enough to call ourselves ‘graphic designers’ without sounding either overly specialised or obsolete?            
Political imagery re-examinedIssue 58, Winter 2005
Review

                                                One challenge of design and art historians today is how to analyse familiar material, like…                        
Me feral designerIssue 56, Summer 2005
Opinion

                                            While we don’t need more slick professionals, primitives are no boon either            
Springtime for Hitler and LegoIssue 44, Summer 2002
Opinion

                                            
	A review of ‘Mirroring evil’ at the Jewish Museum, New York            
Kicking complacency in the assIssue 36, Summer 2000
Feature

                                            
	In the late 1960s, the underground press was a spontaneous and primitive rebellion against the status quo, with visual and verbal obsecnity as its most potent weapons. Sex stimulated sales, but ultimately sapped its creative radical energy            
Reputations: Milton GlaserIssue 25, Summer 1997
Feature

                                            
	‘I am nervous about ideologies, whether it’s the ideology of business or the ideology of Bolshevism. I get nervous in the presence of absolute certainty’            
Type play for kidsIssue 19, Winter 1995
Feature

                                            It has taken decades for expressive typography to win acceptance in the world of the children's book            
Changing of the guardIssue 8, Autumn 1992
Opinion

                                            
	American graphic design is divided. The once rebellious avant-garde has become the status quo, while the new guard shun their elders’ example and adhere to few of the old ‘isms’            
Total designIssue 8, Autumn 1992
Feature

                                            
	In its all too brief life, Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine achieved perfection            
Cult of the uglyIssue 9, Summer 1993
Feature

                                            
	Designers used to stand for beauty and order. Now beauty is passé and ugliness is smart. How did we get here and is there any way out?            
Commercial SurrealistIssue 5, Winter 1991
Feature

                                            
	Are the pictures of Dallas photographer Geof Kern postmodern retro or authentic art?            
Guerrilla graphicsIssue 4, Summer 1991
Opinion

                                            Design has the power to effect change. Now it must develop a social conscience            
America: the lost decadesIssue 1, Autumn 1990
Review

                                                Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History is a challenging book but it made a…                        
MonitorIssue 11, Winter 1993
Opinion

                                            Who says classical has to mean boring?            
Recent blog posts about Steven Heller

An Iranian vision

5 November 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Typography
Despite censorship and sanctions, a bilingual magazine showcasing Iranian and Western design has flourished for two decades. By Steven Heller
The history of visual arts in Iran is divided into two historical periods of Iranian…
The last magazine czar

24 June 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Reviews
Art director Alex Liberman remembered: ‘His only requirement was that the design make it easy to read the copy.’ Review by Steven Heller
Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) was the first and last twentieth-century magazine czar, writes Steven Heller. No…
Typorama spectacular

12 January 2014
Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Typography
This Paris retrospective of Philippe Apeloig’s cerebral, conceptual design and typography is a triumph that exceeds high expectations, reports Steven Heller
The last time I saw a gaggle of teenage art students sitting quietly on the…
Objects of desire

28 February 2013
Food design, Graphic design, Reviews, Visual culture
Designers have been engaged in sex since neolithic times. Well, maybe those neolithics were not…
Commercial modernism

30 July 2008
Design history, Graphic design
Teague’s modernistic gem gave Kodak a distinct visual personality
The Summer 2008 issue of Eye, no. 68, goes ‘Beyond the canon’ to question and…