Feature: Graphic design
Quiet spirit of joy
By championing pattern-making, art and ephemera, the Curwen Press brought a new ‘Comfy Modernism’ to commercial printing
Read me! Part 2. Literacy in graphic design education
‘Relativist’ debates within the profession have extended to the way design and typography are taught. If there are no agreed standards – no absolutes within design – how can one teach? Are we heading towards a state of ‘institutional ignorance’ as tutors have less knowledge to pass on to their students?
Read me! Part 1. Literacy in graphic design
Graphic designers are responsible for the communication of ideas through words, signs and pictures. Yet experimentation and new aesthetics cannot emerge without a thorough understanding of reading and writing: if we accept that language is important, we must be prepared to protect it
Controlled passion: the art of Fernando Gutiérrez
In post-Franco Spain, a cool Catalan breeze blows through the often humid, overheated world of professional magazine design and art direction
A design (to sign roads by)
As an exemplary rational design programme, the road signs of Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert demand careful study. Despite poor application, inconsistent additions and muddle over the past four decades, their robust, flexible system – with its humane typeface and quirky pictograms – still functions throughout the length and breadth of Britain
Reputations: Josef Müller-Brockmann
‘I would advise young people to look at everything they encounter in a critical light … Then I would urge them at all times to be self-critical.’
Theatre of dreams
Andrzej Klimowski is obsessed with eyes, faces, hands, angels and devils. He is one of Britain’s most haunting image-makers
White space black hat
Derek Birdsall harbours a secret. It has given him 30 years at the top. If it works, he says, use it again
Total design
In its all too brief life, Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine achieved perfection
Techno cubists
Champions of the layered look, Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell wed theory and technological wizardry