Eye Magazine | Author | Steven Heller

Steven Heller

Recent articles by Steven Heller

Shock and drawIssue 109, Winter 2026
Review
The book is not just about a pioneer of hippie-era comics, but an account of a great artist – however problematic – of his time …
Philadelphia freedomIssue 104, Spring 2023
Feature

                                            Pentagram’s Luke Hayman has given The Philadelphia Inquirer an overhaul. By Steven Heller [EXTRACT]            
Letterform Archive: Objects of InspirationIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	Letterform Archive is feeding the post-digital generation’s passion for physical artefacts            
Milton Glaser: Design eminenceIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	‘Buttons, flyers, posters, postcards, T-shirts and books. How primitive are the means we have to dissent. And yet I believe these modest tools can help change history.’             
Françoise Mouly: The illustrator’s art editorIssue 100, Summer 2020
Feature

                                            
	‘The covers are meant to capture the moment, but we want them to make sense next week, next decade, in a hundred years!’             
Big idea, small footprintIssue 99, Autumn 2019
Review

                                                New York’s Mmuseumm is not a freak show but rather a show of freaky, poignant…                        
Signs of the timesIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Review

                                                Every few years or so, a choice handful of illustrator / designers make a splash…                        
Guilt, abstractedIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Feature

                                            
	Nora Krug’s graphic memoir explores the
	impact of the Second World War – and the Nazi regime – on German families            
For the love of food and printIssue 97, Autumn 2018
Feature

                                            
	Michele Outland, creative director of Bon Appétit, also co-founded and designs the indie mag Gather Journal. Steven Heller reports            
From cover to coverIssue 96, Spring 2018
Review

                                                Originally used to protect book bindings, dust jackets were often discarded before a book was…                        
The anti-RockwellIssue 95, Winter 2017
Feature

                                            
	Blechman pioneered a less-is-more aesthetic. His scratchy shorthand expresses ideas with a punchy surprise            
A 2D man comes to lifeIssue 95, Winter 2017
Review
This gutsy new book by Paul Sahre is a candid narrative about a graphic designer – a two-dimensional practitioner.
Crayon gameIssue 93, Winter 2016
Feature

                                            
	The unexpected craze for adult colouring books has created a bonanza for publishers. Can they keep it going?            
The ‘bookness’ of booksIssue 93, Winter 2016
Review

                                                Hundreds of books about books have been published during the past century. A complete bibliographic…                        
Dreaming in ColorsIssue 91, Spring 2016
Review

                                                In the ‘about’ section on the Colors website, you can see a sepia-tone photograph of…                        
Love songs for PianoIssue 90, Summer 2015
Review

                                                In her photographs and brief text for Office Romance (Aperture, $29.95, £19.95, designed by Jon…                        
Unpacked baggageIssue 88, Summer 2014
Review

                                                Is any contemporary illustrator a household name today? Not in the same way that Norman…                        
Leftovers with a bad tasteIssue 87, Spring 2014
Feature

                                            
	In the past century the use of ‘trade characters’ built brand loyalty while reinforcing stereotypes            
Raw and radicalIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                The ‘underground press’ died out more than 40 years ago. Yet it lives on, thanks…                        
Surfing a 1960s California waveIssue 86, Autumn 2013
Review

                                                Having spent a week alternately prancing and slogging through John Van Hamersveld’s career-capping monograph, I…                        
The physics of sittingIssue 85, Spring 2013
Review

                                                Brian Lutz’s Eero Saarinen: Furniture for Everyman will appeal to all designers – as much…                        
Turn of the ScrewIssue 84, Autumn 2012
Review

                                                ‘Sex sells!’ was a 1960s motto. Though not as popular as ‘Peace now’, ‘Make love…                        
Miss FixitIssue 83, Summer 2012
Feature

                                            
	Tina Roth Eisenberg never had a business plan. But all the things she dreams up – the Swissmiss blog, ‘creative mornings’, stick-on tattoos – pay off. By Steven Heller            
Signs of life under an iron fistIssue 83, Summer 2012
Review

                                                Graphic design histories are, in large part, harvests of unearthed images and anecdotes. Every time…                        
Hergé’s adventures in the world of graphicsIssue 69, Autumn 2008
Review

                                                I frequently have lunch at a Belgian café in New York called Le Petite Abeille (the…                        
The theatre that Swarte builtIssue 49, Autumn 2003
Review

                                                On April 30 1995, the Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte was miserably tossing around on his…                        
Design as a matter of life and deathIssue 56, Summer 2005
Review

                                                When I was at Valley Forge Military Academy during the mid-1960s my second favourite subject (after…                        
Reputations: Alex SteinweissIssue 76, Summer 2010
Feature

                                            
	‘I got this idea that the way they were selling these albums was ridiculous. The covers were just brown, tan or green paper. I said, “Who the hell’s going to buy this stuff? There’s no push to it. There’s no attractiveness. There’s no sales appeal.” So I told them I’d like to start designing covers.’            
Gnomic utterancesIssue 75, Spring 2010
Review

                                                There is nothing new about artist’s books composed from pieced together, ironically juxtaposed snippets of…                        
Found MasterIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                I first came across N. P. de Koo while researching my own Dutch Modern (Chronicle…                        
Murket forcesIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                Despite my admiration for Naomi Klein’s No Logo (2000), it ultimately served only to increase…                        
It is what it isIssue 53, Autumn 2004
Feature

                                            Scott Stowell’s Open brings innovation, style and plain speaking to broadcast design            
How to write a Modernist’s obituaryIssue 67, Spring 2008
Review

                                                History is continually being made, but that does not mean all history will be written. What…                        
Crumb’s graphic sweepingsIssue 41, Autumn 2001
Review

                                                Crumb has been the comics’ deity for me since the early 1960s when I saw…                        
Moderne timesIssue 61, Autumn 2006
Feature

                                            Why has France’s influence upon European graphic design been underestimated and neglected?            
Drawing aside the veil over TehranFeature

                                    
TASS’s take on a tumultuous century [extract]Feature

                                    
Paper tigers [extract]Feature

                                    
Credits where dueIssue 68, Summer 2008
Review

                                                How do you make God laugh? Make plans! How do you make your publisher cry…                        
Jan the preacher manFeature

                                    
The alchemistIssue 60, Summer 2006
Feature

                                            Animator Jeff Scher uses dense, unorthodox techniques to make his highly original, image-rich films            
Eisner puts straight an anti-semitic slanderFeature

                                    
When Andy got his sticky fingers on an album . . .Issue 71, Spring 2009
Review

                                                Andy Warhol (1928-87) is the artist who will not die. His life and work helped…                        
Sex and pulp and rock’n’rollIssue 70, Winter 2008
Review

                                                In 1952, US Congressman Ezekiel C. Gathings singled out pocket-sized, mass-market paperbacks as being for…                        
Better than the real thing?Issue 73, Autumn 2009
Feature

                                            Facsimiles give scholars and students the chance to enjoy, understand and literally get to grips with the physical nature of printed design classics.            
Stereotyping for pictures, power and profitIssue 62, Winter 2006
Review

                                                Stereotyping was the name given by the French printer Fermin Didot in 1794 to his…                        
MoMA’s must-have book of booksFeature

                                    
Face to face with the Afrikan written traditionIssue 53, Autumn 2004
Review

                                                Contemporary graphic and typographic design histories are mostly America-centric or Euro-centric. Despite a few books…                        
Genteel rebels of PhiladelphiaFeature

                                    
New frontierIssue 68, Summer 2008
Feature

                                            When art director Art Paul made the journey from Bauhaus to Hefner’s Playboy mansion, men’s mags became truly ‘Modern’.            

Blog posts by Steven Heller

An Iranian vision

5 November 2020
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Typography

Despite censorship and sanctions, a bilingual magazine showcasing Iranian and Western design has flourished for two decades. By Steven Heller

The history of visual arts in Iran is divided into two historical periods of Iranian…

The last magazine czar

24 June 2014
Design history, Graphic design, Magazines, Reviews

Art director Alex Liberman remembered: ‘His only requirement was that the design make it easy to read the copy.’ Review by Steven Heller

Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) was the first and last twentieth-century magazine czar, writes Steven Heller. No…

Typorama spectacular

12 January 2014
Graphic design, Posters, Reviews, Typography

This Paris retrospective of Philippe Apeloig’s cerebral, conceptual design and typography is a triumph that exceeds high expectations, reports Steven Heller

The last time I saw a gaggle of teenage art students sitting quietly on the…

Objects of desire

28 February 2013
Food design, Graphic design, Reviews, Visual culture

Designers have been engaged in sex since neolithic times. Well, maybe those neolithics were not…

Commercial modernism

30 July 2008
Design history, Graphic design

Teague’s modernistic gem gave Kodak a distinct visual personality

The Summer 2008 issue of Eye, no. 68, goes ‘Beyond the canon’ to question and…