Design History 101

Modernism’s Not for Everyone—Least of All Penguins: A Cautionary Tale About Universal Solutions + Ideas About Redesigning Poverty

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

Design History 101

Modernism’s Not for Everyone—Least of All Penguins: A Cautionary Tale About Universal Solutions + Ideas About Redesigning Poverty

Words by
Madeleine Morley

Published on
December 6th, 2019

Typography

Six Fonts that Prove Bauhaus-Inspired Typography is Alive and Well

Unless you’ve been living in a Brutalist cave, you’re probably very much aware that 2019 is the centenary of the…

Design History 101

Looking Back on Muriel Cooper’s Visions of the Future

Wedged between white paper folders at MIT’s Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) archive, there’s a curiously emphatic black binder coated…

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…

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…

Editors’ Picks

Op-ed

Designers, Please Pay Your Interns

I teach design at a public university in the American south. I also serve as the internship coordinator, connecting students…

Design + Gender

We Surveyed Gender Equality at the World’s Biggest Design Conferences—and the Numbers Are In

In early 2018, a designer posted on Facebook that only around one-third of the speakers at Brno’s International Biennial of…

Design + Money

“Epically Long”—How Pentagram Chooses Its New Partners

For many of us, the intersection of brands and data brings to mind issues of privacy; it can stir up…

Design History 101

The Cost of Free Love and the Designers Who Bore It—Meet the Women of Psychedelic Design

“If I hear the phrase ‘Summer of Love’ one more time, I will scream,” says Louise Sandhaus from her design…

Books

In Defense of Beautiful Design

Ask the nearest designer for an example of good design, and they’ll mostly likely name drop some big brand logos,…

Design + Sexuality

Sex Sells, Just Not When It Comes to Branding Women’s Pleasure

This year at AIGA’s Design Conference, industrial designer Ti Chang shared how she’s built her career around designing for social…

Op-ed

The Design Industry Needs to Take a Stand Against Free Pitching

Sarah Boris is an award winning graphic designer and art director based in London, where since 2015 she has run…

Branding

How Rated Rookie, Baseball’s Favorite Logo, Stood the Test of Time

About a decade ago, a designer at trading card giant Panini America was tasked with performing a resurrection. The goal…

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 + Mental Health

We Need to Talk About How We Talk About Creativity and Mental Health

When I started on this series of Design + Mental Health features, I’d assumed it would be fairly straightforward: I…

Design History 101

Uncovering the Avant-Garde Graphic Design + Experimental Teaching of “Soviet Bauhaus,” the Vkhutemas School

In 1920, Vladimir Lenin signed a decree that was to have a monumental effect on artists in post-revolutionary Russia. This…

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

Anni Albers, The “Designer’s Artist” Who Put Women on the Grid

“Anni Albers is very much a designer’s artist,” says Priyesh Mistry, one of the curators of the Tate Modern’s vast 2019…

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,…

Op-ed

Not a Style, But a Stance: #bauhaus in the Age of Social Media

Recently, #bauhaus overtook #brutalism as one of the most popular design and architecture hashtags on Instagram. Peruse the associated images…

Eye on Design City Guide: Mumbai

Eye on Design City Guides

Mumbai’s Graphic Design Education Has a Lot of Catching Up To Do

This is the second piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s…

Eye on Design City Guides

Mumbai’s Growing Creative Scene is Luring in Graphic Designers

Following in the footsteps of our London City Guide, this is the first in a new series that weighs the…

Eye on Design City Guides

The Realities of Running a Design Studio in Mumbai

This is the third piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s creative…

Eye on Design City Guides

Being a Mumbai Type Designer is About More Than Great Work—You Gotta Get the Lingos, and There’s Hundreds of Them

This is the third piece in our series that weighs the pros and cons of living and working in Mumbai’s creative…

Design History 101

End of a Centennial: Eye on Design’s Bauhaus Week 👋

This is the last week you’ll be reading about the Bauhaus this year (on this site, anyway)—we promise. In Germany…

Design

The 💯% Official Holiday Gift Guide for Graphic Designers, Illustrators, Generally Creative People + Also Everyone You Know

It’s the time of year again when we zip down-filled puffers over layers of boiled wool and long underwear and…

Design Diary

Communicating “Acceptance of Pain” Through Book Design, Rebranding Trash + More

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

Happy Hour

Beautiful Booze Bottles Fit for Your Thanksgiving Table

Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of Happy Hour. You might already be a bottle of wine deep into the day…

Magazines

The Atlantic’s Redesign Bucks Minimalist Trends to Revisit its Storied 162 Year History

Earlier this month, The Atlantic unveiled the cover for its December issue, titled “How to Stop a Civil War.” The…

Type Tuesday

Like Futura But With a “Cyberfunk” Edge, Giga Medium Is a Whopper of a Font Personality

Name: Giga Medium Designer: Cihan Tamti Release Date: Late summer 2019 Back Story: It’s bonkers to think that this young…

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…

Weekend With

Illustrator Julian Glander Takes Us to the Best Dive Bars, Comic Stores, and Pizza Joints in Pittsburgh

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

Design Diary

A Directory for Sourcing Sustainable Design Materials, Teaching Tools for Typographers + More

Also in this week’s Design Diary, our weekly roundup of design news and projects, it’s open season for The Design…

Design + Music

This Is Hardcore—The Huge Impact of a Niche Movement on Graphic Designers Today

For the uninitiated, hardcore was a subgenre of punk that has since become most famed for its more political movements…

Type Tuesday

A Rapidly Growing Font for Fast Times

Name: Zoom Pro Designer: Florian Paizs Foundry: The Designers Foundry Release Date: October 2019 Back Story: It’s pretty much universally acknowledged that type design…

Graphic design

It’s Not Just You—the Neon Glow of “Terminal Green” Really is Ubiquitous

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

Design Diary

A Cover Design for American Psycho Made Using Actual Pig’s Blood, an Animation Imagining Tinder Swipes IRL + More

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

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Editors’ Picks

Eye on Design City Guide: Mumbai