Eye Magazine

Anyone who creates something new – whether it’s an idea or an artefact – is engaged in a kind of dialogue: with the past; with the culture of the present; and with the audience of the future.

Eye 85 is one of the most broadly general issues we have published for a while, taking in magazine art direction, summer schools, Puffin’s printing techniques and wordless books for children.

Two articles explore relatively unknown aspects of design history: Bruno Munari’s early work in Mussolini’s Italy; and a treasure trove of rediscovered posters from the Royal College of Art. Each provides a counterpoint to the better known icons of pre- and postwar graphics.

By contrast, Dutch practice Lust make work that is interactive, technologically driven and entirely contemporary. Their tools are digital; their raw materials are raw data. Yet their scepticism about ‘problem-solving design’, and their understanding that process can lead to form, is rooted in their studies with Karel Martens two decades ago, when the Web was in its infancy. JLW

First published in Eye no. 85 vol. 22 2013

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, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. You can see what Eye 85 looks like at Eye before You Buy on Vimeo.