Eye Magazine

Glyph* (Cicada Books, £9.95), conceived and designed by Shiro Nishimoto and Adriana Caneva of Off-White design studio, is a ‘visual exploration of punctuation marks and other typographic symbols’ that concentrates on ‘those quiet glyphs, the ones we tend to forget about.’ The short texts, written by Anna Davies, provide a brief overview of the symbols’ history – the dagger, obelus, underscore, caret and many more.

Ron Jude’s photobook Lago (Mack, £35.00 / €40.00 / $50.00) takes distant memories from the photographer’s youth under the California sun as its subject. Jude’s photographs emit heat and dust and are filled with sun-bleached rubbish, stray dogs, spiders, dilapitated buildings, the marks left behind by beach-front wheelies, a makeshift (microwave oven box) pellet gun target, concrete, stagnant water, darkness, lost shoes, a watering hole and much more. Joshua Bonnetta’s field recordings / audio accompaniment for Jude’s book can be enjoyed on the Mack website.

Patternalia: An Unconventional History of Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaid, Camouflage, & Other Graphic Patterns (Bloomsbury, £16.99 / $25) is author Jude Stewart’s second book with Bloomsbury that looks closely at one aspect or expression of design (see ‘Books received #6’ on the Eye blog). Stewart’s highly visual book brings together a wide range of quotes – from R. Buckminster Fuller to the TV character Jess from New Girl – with history, Gestalt psychology, fashion and textile design and puzzles in an attempt to draw attention to ubiquitous patterns found in everyday life.

Street artist Lord K2’s Street Art Santiago (Schiffer Publishing, $34.99) looks at the ‘seductive underground scene’ in Santiago, Chile, with a practitioner’s eye. Santiago’s street art includes ‘stickers, throw-ups, stencils, mosaics, and big murals’ as well as tags and graffiti. The book’s text is made up of transcripts taken from Lord K2’s conversations with artists on Santiago streets such as Yalus who is in love with ‘the exquisite corners’ of Barrio Brazil; with Chin Chin, who sees street art as a means of dispersing ‘our message of unity, to make the world a better place to co-exist in’, in Centro; and Vision, who feels that street art in Quinta Normal makes ‘the world vibrate.’

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.