Graphic design

A Growing List of Resources for the Movement for Black Lives

Throughout the last week, alongside condemnation of police brutality and racism, we’ve seen donation links, calls to action, guides for…

Graphic design

A Growing List of Resources for the Movement for Black Lives

Resources, donation links, reading recommendations and Black designers to support

Words by
The Editors

Published on
June 5th, 2020

Design History 101

In the Late ’70s in the Bronx, PHASE 2’s Party Flyers Created a Visual Language for Hip-Hop

In the South Bronx in the 1970s, hip-hop culture was just beginning to form at large musical gatherings called jams.…

Design + Politics

What Does It Mean to Decolonize Design?

“Decolonization” is a word we’re increasingly hearing at design events, often being used interchangeably with “diversity.” It’s important to emphasize…

Design + Diversity

Designing an Experimental Technology Curriculum By—and For—Black Creatives

Somewhere along the long timeline of human existence, society began associating innovation with speed: faster cars, rapid test results, instant…

Design + Diversity

Four Black Creatives on the Importance of Building and Cultivating Community

The creative technology industry has a diversity problem. Put differently, both industries—creative and technology—have some real work to do when…

Design + Diversity

Celebrating the African-American Practitioners Absent From Way Too Many Classroom Lectures

‘As, Not For: Dethroning Our Absolutes’ is an exhibition of work by African-American graphic designers that seeks to “question, inspire, activate, and…

Editors’ Picks

Design Census

The Trick to Recession-proofing Your Design Practice? Try Something New

This story is the first in a series that explores the results of the 2019 Design Census. In 2008, Katie…

Design + Mental Health

“Hard Work, Attention to Detail,” and Paralyzing Fear: the Ups + Downs of Designing with Anxiety

A month or so ago, we published an article about why we need to rethink the way we discuss the…

Design History 101

The Hidden History of Magic Eye, the Optical Illusion That Briefly Took Over the World

For a flash in the 1990s, Magic Eye, the world’s most famous—and infamously frustrating—optical illusion, was everywhere. Posters bearing the…

Design History 101

Fleur Cowles and the Making of Flair, History’s Most Beautiful Magazine

“Most women married to rich men hope for a yacht or racehorses or more jewels,” the legendary editor Fleur Cowles,…

Design + Diversity

Why Role Models Matter: Celebrating Women of Color in Design

Read any article or report about minorities within the design industry and you’ll come across the words “excluded,” “oppressed,” and…

Typography

Martin Luther King’s Powerful Speeches, Captured In a Typeface

A sign of a great elocutionist is when you can hear their words echoing in your head, even if you’re…

Sending Off Black History Month With 5 Designs from the AIGA Archives

As Black History Month comes to a close, we’re beginning something new on Eye on Design: asking archivists, librarians, curators,…

Design + Diversity

Typography as a Radical Act in an Industry Ever-dominated by White Men

Letterforms are loaded cultural objects—they often reflect the people who made them and the story they want to tell. In…

Op-ed

Design’s Role in Activism Can Go Deeper Than Posters and T-Shirts

We first read this piece, written by Dori Tunstall, the dean of design at OCAD University in Toronto, in a…

Design + Politics

“Decolonizing Means Many Things to Many People”—Four Practitioners Discuss Decolonizing Design

Last year, I wrote an article for Eye on Design that asked what decolonization means in the context of design.…

Digital

Finding the Blank Spots in Big Data

Mimi Onuoha is an artist who works mostly with algorithms, data sets, and digital systems, but her best known work…

Digital

Netflix’s UX Design is Keeping Us Up at Night

Netflix is keeping us awake. I’m not talking about its latest gameshow Awake: The Million Dollar Game, where contestants must…

Design + Sexuality

The UX of Porn Tube Sites Are Designed for the Ultimate Money Shot

This article is excerpted from the fifth issue of Eye on Design magazine. Pick up a copy of Eye on…

Digital

A Software Engineer’s Advice for Saving Social Media? Keep It Small

There’s a common refrain on Twitter that can be heard echoing across the feed any time there’s a big news…

Digital

AI Has a Real Environmental Impact—Here’s How Designers Are Handling It

One of the foundational materials of computer science is an endless piece of tape. “An unlimited memory capacity obtained in…

Digital

Calm Technology Is Staging a Comeback—Can Good Design Make it Stick?

Last week I made progress. I was down 20 minutes. Instead of spending an average of three hours a day…

Design + Education

Can We Teach Graphic Design History Without the Cult of Hero Worship?

Let’s engage in a thought experiment. Think about what you know about graphic design history. Then omit all mention of…

Digital

The Design “Collaboration” Platform That’s Gone Viral

It’s been almost exactly a year since Patrick Thomas came up with the first version of Open Collab, a low-tech,…

Graphic design

Welcome to the High-Stakes World of… Data-viz Design?

Last summer, against the backdrop of a world that looks increasingly unfamiliar, three Brooklyn designers launched a studio with the…

Graphic design

It’s Sharp, It’s Cool, It’s Both Retro and Futuristic—What’s With All the Chiseled Type?

Welcome to Spotted, Eye on Design’s new(ish) column that turns an eye (ahem) on the styles and graphic trends you’re…

Wayfinding

In Singapore, Residents Create a Social Distancing Wayfinding Language With Tape

Dots. Lines. Crosses. Boxes. They have popped up all across Singapore over the past few weeks. Plastered over furniture, floors,…

Type Tuesday

BallPill is What a Font Looks Like When its Designer’s on the Rebound

Name: BallPill Designer: Benoît Bodhuin (specimens printed by Quintal Éditions) Release Date: March 2020 Back Story: French type designer Benoît…

Design + Education

Parsons’ E Roon Kang on Graphic Design as a “Structure for Knowledge”

E Roon Kang lives and works in New York, where he operates the interdisciplinary design and research studio Math Practice,…

Design + Education

Elizabeth Carey Smith on Running the Ultimate “Summer Camp for Type Nerds”

Elizabeth Carey Smith is a creative director whose focus is on furthering the overlap of New York’s type designers, art…

Design + Education

Graduating in Vulnerable Times Calls for Radical Schools—and Students

Rebecca Wright isn’t one to shy away from big questions. As co-founder of the publishing, curation, and design advocacy organization…

Design + Education

What Does “Queering Design Education” Actually Look Like in Practice?

Nicole Killian is an artist and graphic designer whose work “investigates how the structures of the internet, mobile messaging, and…

Design + Education

Design Legend Gail Anderson Answers Your Questions About Where Designers Should Live, Racism in the Workplace + Creating Social Impact

As the 2018 recipient of the Cooper Hewitt’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Gail Anderson (a 2008 AIGA Medalist) has once again…

Design + Education

Elizabeth White on Teaching for the “Whole Student”

Elizabeth White is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Her work explores “social, psychological, and political themes including maintenance and self-preservation;…

Design + Education

Nontsikelelo Mutiti on Interrogating the Euro-centric Design Canon

Nontsikelelo Mutiti is a Zimbabwe-born interdisciplinary artist and educator who works across fine art, design, and social practice. Mutiti co-founded…

Illustration

Illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli on Creativity, Routines, and Why Reading a Book Is the Ultimate Form of Inspiration

On the day of my interview with Olimpia Zagnoli—via FaceTime from London—I take a peek at the celebrated 36-year-old illustrator’s…

Illustration

Behind the Psychedelic Scenes of New Netflix Series The Midnight Gospel

On April 20, Netflix released The Midnight Gospel, an eight-episode, psycho-cosmic adventure spun by the brilliant minds of Pendleton Ward—of…

Design + Money

Reaching for Resilience in the Time of Covid-19

A month ago, the brilliant designer Bobby C. Martin spoke to my typography students at Fordham University about his storied…

Design + Education

I’m A Design Student—What Happens Next?

A previous version of this story included advice from a seventh educator, which has since been deleted. We understand our…

Type Tuesday

The Revived Turn-of-the-century Typeface Combining French Elegance + Art Nouveau Frivolity

Name: Romain 20 Designer: Alice Savoie Foundry: 205TF Release Date: March 2020 Back Story: Classy serif revival font Romain 20,…

Design + Music

Under the Covers: M.I.A.’s Arular Proves That Great Design Isn’t All About Understanding Photoshop

This is the second in our series Under The Covers, in which we shine a spotlight on a significant album…

Weekend With

Ravi Naidoo Takes Us on a Design Tour of Cape Town, from Michael Beirut’s Favorite Jogging Spot to an Artist’s Homage to SA Wine

Our Weekend With series looks at the world through the eyes of a designer on their days off. Last time,…

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