Winter 2010
Type space
Supergraphics
Unit Editions, £25 + p&pSupergraphics (Unit Editions, £25 + p&p, only available from uniteditions.com) is a 320-page softback about large-scale graphics for buildings and public spaces. The pictures are grouped into the past, present and future. The first section shows ground-breaking graphics by Barbara Stauffacher Solomon for the Sea Ranch (1966, architects Charles Moore and William Turnbull) and the Hear Hear Record Store (1969) plus work by Lance Wyman, Barrie Briscoe and Deborah Sussman (her work for LA’s 1984 Olympics).
The section labelled ‘Supergraphics: here and now’ features Haas&Hahn’s Favela Painting Project in Rio; emerystudio’s anamorphic type projections in a Melbourne car park; and Morag Myerscough’s ‘adventurous’ wayfinding system for the LCC (London College of Communication).
The ‘Future’ section tackles high-tech multimedia displays on public buildings, with work by unstudio, lab[au], Troika and Trafik, a future that’s well and truly here.
A pink appendix includes a candid interview with Stauffacher Solomon, whose unpublished autobiography sounds like a must-read. ‘I always saw things as multifaceted, multimedia and multi-dimensional,’ she says, ‘in books, in things that happened by chance and in design.’ JLW
First published in Eye no. 78 vol. 20 2010
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.
