Graphic Design

Ars Libri Ltd|Collections

Paul Schuitema Collection

An extensive collection of the graphic design of the Dutch designer Paul Schuitema (1897-1973), noted for his innovative use of photomontage and color.  Complex and various, the collection includes advertising brochures and pamphlets …

Ars Libri Ltd|Collections

Walter Dexel Collection

A remarkable collection of the graphic design of the German Constructivist artist and typographer Walter Dexel (1890-1973) comes from the library of  Ars Libri.  Numbering some 85 items, the collection focuses on Dexel’s finest …

Ellen Lupton|Interviews

A Conversation With David Barringer

David Barringer’s book, There’s Nothing Funny About Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2009) is actually very funny. This collection of new and revised essays presents the graphic design world with a kick in the literary pants. …

Jason Grant|Essays

Cultured Graphic Hygiene

Regardless of how difficult, disobedient or messy their subject, museum posters are courteous and clean. Is there any reason why graphic design for museums shouldn’t be the measure of their exhibits?

Michael Bierut|Slideshows

Invasion of the Neutered Sprites

There is an epidemic threatening our world: the pointy-limbed little people that appear in every other nonprofit logo. Death to the Neutered Sprites!

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

Ten Graphic Design Paradoxes

Paradoxometer prototyped by Adrian Shaughnessy. Artwork by Tea Design  I’ve just finished writing a book about graphic design. Yep, just what the world needs — another graphic design book. In my defence, the book is about the …

Steven Heller|Essays

Japanese Face Masks

In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, you may recall seeing scores of surgical face-mask-wearing passersby navigating their ways through the dense futuristic metropolis that is a cross between Tokyo and LA. It always struck me as odd — yet …

Kenneth FitzGerald|Essays

I Believe in Design

The Chesapeake Van, March 2009, photo by Kenneth FitzGerald In each of the communities I’ve lived I’ve encountered one of these trucks. It’s always a white van, hand-inscribed by paint or permanent marker with a variety of …

Mark Lamster|Essays

Annals of Branding, Redux

The design elves over at Pepsico have been very busy of late, as noted here last week regarding the (awful) new logo for the corporate flagship and the (much hated) new packaging for Tropicana.

Mark Lamster|Essays

The Real Thing

Tropicana has been getting a lot of flack over its redesigned juice cartons. Steve Heller called the rebranding "a mistake." Jason Kottke simply dubbed it "sucky." Let me respectfully disagree.

Steven Heller|Essays

The Good Books

Kommt, sehet de Kunst, Die Bibliophilen TaschenbücherWhy can’t American publishers produce a series of good — no great — books on graphic culture like Die Bibliophilen Taschenbücher? Published in 1979 by Harenberg Kommunikation, …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Designing Through the Recession

Here are three things that happen to designers in a recession, and five things they can do about it.