Blog: Design history
17 August 2012
Give us back our design!
East Germany’s biggest design archive is about to be put under wraps, inaccessible to scholars and the general public, writes Jessica Jenkins
In the period of political upheaval immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an…
3 August 2012
Not pasted over
East German posters are given a place in design history, thanks to Plakat Ost’s exhibition in Berlin
The rituals of telling the story of East Germany have become as tired as the…
31 July 2012
The notes may be fabricated
capitalism, currency, finance, money
Alternative currencies show that money is just an idea that can be redesigned. By Livia Lima
We live in an age when it is difficult to trust our banks, writes Livia…
24 July 2012
Crashing through the type
Time magazine infographics by Nigel Holmes, 1970s – infodesign in Eye 82
It was good luck, really, writes Nigel Holmes. Walter Bernard, Time’s art director, was looking…
24 July 2012
Type Tuesday: Presstival
type tuesday
Preview of a late summer festival for British print and type enthusiasts
We like the sound of ‘Presstival’, otherwise known as the annual open day of the…
20 July 2012
Gays, junkies & Africans: who cares?
The international challenges of communicating AIDS awareness
Contemporary consumer society has particular features that present communication challenges for the social service sector…
18 July 2012
Training the big guns
Peter Sullivan’s newspaper war visuals, 1970s & 80s – from Eye 82
Peter Sullivan worked at The Sunday Times in the 1970s and 80s, an era when…
11 July 2012
Big business, big world
Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas, 1953 – infodesign in Eye 82
Long before multinational corporations discovered the usefulness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in ameliorating a…
11 July 2012
Type Tuesday: Naked words
Type-only book covers: austere, functional … or shouting out loud
Once upon a time, book jackets were almost all pure typographic compositions: these were the…
6 July 2012
Otl Aicher’s interjections
The ‘Munich ’72’ Design Legacy exhibition & symposium in Canterbury
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Otl Aicher’s design work for the 1972 Munich…