Illustration

For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland’s Official Maps

The first three dimensions—length, height, and depth—are included on all topographical maps. The “fourth dimension,” or time, is also available…

Illustration

For Decades, Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside of Switzerland’s Official Maps

They’ve eluded one of the most rigorous map-making institutions in the world to do so

Words by
Zoey Poll

Published on
February 24th, 2020

Books

Jason Ramirez Wanted to Become a Doctor. Now He Brings Stories to Life

Jason Ramirez didn’t always have grand creative ambitions. Growing up in Topeka, Kansas, the designer, illustrator, and current art director…

Digital

Can We End the Designer vs. Developer Debacle Already?

Between 2017 and 2018, Google produced a series of 24 short videos that saw digital designer Mustafa Kurtuldu interview a…

Type Tuesday

“Diabolic Terminals and Drunky Alternates”—A Typeface Fit for A Designer-Run Brewery

Name: Caserne Brewery typeface Designers: Montreal-based Caserne created the visual identity that spawned the font, while nearby foundry Coppers and Brasses is behind…

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.…

Graphic design

Overheard on Design Twitter: an Ethics Lesson, Creative Process Real-talk, And an Underwhelming New Logo

Last week, #DesignTwitter launched into a classic ethics question: Is it possible to separate an artist from their work? Designers…

Editors’ Picks

Design + Education

What Is Instagram’s Place in Design Education?

This roundtable interview was first published in Eye on Design Magazine, issue #05: Distraction. To many, social media and education…

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…

Op-ed

There’s Too Much Damn Content, and Slick UX Design Is Making it Worse

Over the past decade, everyone—and I mean everyone—with an online presence felt the pressure to become a content publisher. Coca-Cola.…

Design + Money

It’s Time for Graphic Design to Embrace the Radical Potential of Salary Transparency 💸

In May 2019, an assistant curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was sitting in a car with a number…

Design + Money

Gone Phishin’: What Graphic Designers Need to Know About a Weird Internet Scam Targeting Creatives

Most of us have seen phishing emails—maybe a dodgy e-mail address asking about details for a bank you don’t even…

Branding

High-design Healthcare Is Getting the Millennial Branding Treatment

Going to the doctor has always required a level of visual patience. Forms need second reads; digital interfaces require rebooting;…

Typography

What Is Molecular Typography, and Why Is It Experiencing a Resurgence?

Type designers have a bit of a reputation for being meticulous, which makes sense considering the nuances of creating letterforms…

Type Tuesday

Cooper Black Never Went Out of Style—So Why Does It Need a Redesign?

Name: New Kansas Designer: Miles Newlyn, Riccardo Olocco, and Leo Philp Foundry: Newlyn Release Date: February 14, 2020 Back Story:…

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…

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…

Design + Politics

In the 1970s, The Detroit Printing Co-op Showed the Revolutionary Potential of Design

In 1969, a group of friends travelled from Detroit to Chicago to pick up an ancient, cumbersome Harris offset printing…

100 Years of Bauhaus

Design History 101

Celebrating Söre Popitz, the Bauhaus’ Only Known Woman Graphic Designer

In Germany during the 1930s, there was just one lifestyle magazine that every young woman had to have. An essential…

Design History 101

Bauhaus Master László Moholy-Nagy Saw Photoshop Coming, 90 Years Ahead of Time

In the 1920s and ’30s, the New Typography movement spearheaded by the likes of Jan Tschichold, Karel Teige, Herbert Bayer,…

Design History 101

Examples of Bauhaus Graphic Design that Shaped the Movement

Bauhaus design’s impact on today’s graphics is hard to overestimate. Associated with primary colors, thick straight lines slashing across white space,…

Design History 101

In the 1960s, the National Institute of Design Trained India’s First Design Educators

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

Design History 101

From Weimar to Tokyo, We Trace the Origins and Influences of the “Japanese Bauhaus”

In the early 1930s, Iwao Yamawaki and Michiko Yamawaki arrived at the gates of the Bauhaus in Dessau all the way…

Digital

How Computer Code Became a Modern Design Medium—an Oral History

Code is a tool—a string of numbers, glyphs, and letters that when arranged in a particular order can be wielded…

Type Tuesday

An Experimental Font that Merges Ukrainian Folk Tradition + Electronic Music

Name: Mak Designer: Valentyn Tkachenko Release Date: December 2019 Backstory: Valentyn Tkachenko is a graphic designer from Kyiv, Ukraine, who, like a…

Profiles

Emily Oberman and Paul Sahre on Designing With Wit, Coming Up in the ’90s + Being Married to a Designer

Emily Oberman is a partner at Pentagram New York, where she and her team have designed some of the most…

Graphic design

Overheard on Design Twitter: The World Discovers Typography and the Magnificent Military Gets a New Logo

As Jonathan Hoefler recently told the New York Times, “Typography passes for being invisible. People really don’t think about the…

Happy Hour

Four Non-alcoholic Beverages With Some Beautiful Branding

Call us unoriginal, but we’re in support of Dry January, the annual rite of passage for livers to take a…

Design Diary

The Designers Making Hijab Shopping More Accessible, Pentagram’s Eddie Opara rebrands Dashlane, a “Cookbook”-style Guide to Reviving Type + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you a…

Design + Music

The Mysterious Origin Story of Kraftwerk’s Iconic Autobahn Motorway Graphics

The cover art of Autobahn has become one of Kraftwerk’s most recognizable motifs, but the famous white-on-blue convergence lines where…

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…

Type Tuesday

Can a Single Typeface Be Both a Serif and a Sans Serif At Once?

Name: FS Split Sans and Serif Designers: Fernando Mello and Jason Smith Foundry: Fontsmith Release Date: November 2019 Back Story:…

Digital

The Empathy Economy Is Booming, but What Happens When Our Emotional Connections to Others Are Designed, Packaged, and Sold?

On a Monday afternoon in late fall of 2018, a group of 30 or so adults in various interpretations of…

Books

What These Weird, Wild Computer Ads Reveal About Our Changing Relationship With Technology

It’s always interesting to see how yesterday’s imagined futures compare to today’s realities. At a time when the digital sphere…

Design Diary

Janelle Monae on the Design Observer Podcast, a Handbook for Supporting Neurodiversity in the Creative Industry + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our roundup of projects, events, and general design world news, we bring you a…

Profiles

Na Kim on Design as “Found Fiction” Amidst Defined Systems

I like that when I interview designer Na Kim, we’re in a boxy apartment on the fifth floor of a…

Magazines

After the Economic Crisis, Athens’ Tight-knit Zine Scene Flourishes

Set back from the street and nestled in the corner of a central Athenian stoa (a covered arcade), Fotagogos can…

Home

Editors’ Picks

100 Years of Bauhaus