Issue 36

Opinion

John L. Walters
When El Lissitzky dreamt of the future in his 1926 essay “Our Book”, he may…
Empire of spin
Rick Poynor
An ‘official’ website tries to get to grips with contemporary culture. Critique by Rick Poynor
Graphic design, Agenda, David Smith
When issues of quality, responsibility and professionalism are debated, the emerging graphic design organisations of Ireland should look to the example of the Dutch BNO
Screen, Jessica Helfand
As big businesses get bigger and broader and more ubiquitous, their vision often becomes remarkably small

Features

Reputations: Lorraine Wild
Louise Sandhaus
‘The space is configured to the work I want to do. Maybe it has to do with growing up in Detroit, where garages are the site of great creativity (both automotive and musical)’
Russell Warren-Fisher
In post-Franco Spain, a cool Catalan breeze blows through the often humid, overheated world of professional magazine design and art direction
David Heathcote
The design of lavish illustrated tomes often shows a lack of confidence, or perhaps a confident lack of understanding, in the marriage of words and images. Yet the best books are poetic: a minimum of means produces a maximum of meaning
Robin Rimbaud
By dismantling sequential structure in The Unfortunates, B. S. Johnson broke with more conventions than Joyce or Sterne
Roger Sabin
After a 1990s bubble that went splatt, the comics industry has begun to renew itself through new formats, from glossy hardbacks to cheap pulp
John O'Reilly
New technology has transformed the medium of magazines, and social diversity and fragmentation mean that a magazine’s appeal rarely crosses taste and lifestyle boundaries. So what is actually being sold in the stuff that surrounds the advertisements?
Adrian Shaughnessy
Is there an alternative to scrolling text and gap-toothed HTML?
Steven Heller
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