Design + Music

Krautrock Legend Roedelius on the Designs That Front His Groundbreaking Sounds

In the latest of our Under the Covers series looking at seminal records and their design, we speak with seminal…

Design + Music

Krautrock Legend Roedelius on the Designs That Front His Groundbreaking Sounds

Hans-Joachim Roedelius likes to give the impression his artwork is less graphic design and more graphic accident

Words by
Jeremy Allen

Published on
May 6th, 2021

Op-ed

Sorry, but NFTs Are Not Design’s Democratizing Savior

Two months ago, a wave of news coverage around NFTs began to crest across niche art blogs to the New…

Happy Hour

A Brief Tour Through the (Good) Looking Glass Bottles of Tea, Kombucha, and Natural Wine

There’s something alluring about a clear glass bottle. It says: Nothing to hide here! I am not subject to the…

Design + Art

How a Trio of Architects Made the Image That Predicted Reality Television, Fake News, and Viral Memes

“Well, presumably the message is for the media. Get it?” —KTVU-2 News There is a conceptual performance by Ant Farm—that…

Design History 101

“Design For and From Communities”—Bahia Shehab on A History of Arab Graphic Design

I met Bahia Shehab about a year ago at a conference on contemporary Arab graphic design in New York. A…

Graphic design

Want to Understand the Power of Design? Look Past the Numbers

Industry surveys are, by their very nature, a snapshot in time. Pull up the questionnaire, and fill it out. What…

Type Tuesday

A Variable Sans Serif With a Custom Slant Angle + Subtle Sophistication

Name: Altform Text Designer: Mark Bloom Foundry: CoType Foundry Release Date: March 2021 Back Story: Mark Bloom launched CoType Foundry in October 2019,…

Illustration

During a Year Inside, Illustrations Offered a Window to the World

Open up a newspaper, survey your movie options on Netflix, scroll through Instagram—pick any particularly Pandemic-suited pastime—and you’ll no doubt…

Design + Ecology

The Earth Is Its Own Best Mascot for Earth Day’s Complicated Message

Earth Day doesn’t have an official visual identity, simply because it has had so many over the years. For the…

Graphic design

An Exhibition of Unrealized Designs Documents the Year That Could Have Been

“We had the first lockdown on the 13th of March, and I think I sent both posters to print on…

Type Tuesday

A Very Niche, Very Logical Font Inspired by Vintage Typewriters + Python Script

Name: Logic Monospace Designer: Jeremy Mickel Foundry: MCKL Release Date: Fall 2020 Back Story: Mixing technical precision, typewriter fetishization, and…

Graphic design

The People’s Graphic Design Archive Is Rethinking How We Talk About Design History

In July 2020, Briar Levit, a professor of graphic design at Portland State University, uploaded an early 20th century sign…

Editors’ Picks

Typography

Some Type Foundries Want to Restrict Usage of Their Fonts on Ethical Grounds. Will It Work?

Since opening shop in 2009, Zurich-based independent foundry Grilli Type has quietly built a reputation for expertly drawn contemporary designs.…

Digital

Why Are All Video Call Platforms Designed with the “Self-view?”

We’re republishing some of our favorite stories from the year that best encapsulate 2020. Happy reading! When Stanley Kubrick set…

Design + Art

In the Brilliant Work of Beatriz González, Reproduction is a Means of Protest

Beatriz González eschews labels like “pop artist” and “political artist,” which must be tiresome since most people’s first reaction to…

Design + Education

Can We Teach Graphic Design History Without Chronology?

Chronology is so ubiquitous that it seems almost natural. Human beings age and die, which means we experience linear duration…

Magazines

Deem Journal Is The New Magazine Centering Design as a Social Practice

To deem [dēm], is to regard or consider something in a specified way; to make relevant. This is precisely the…

Design + Art

The Bold Graphics and Hidden Stories Behind the Golden Age of Lebanese Film

Familiar are the exquisite dips and curlicues of traditional Arabic calligraphy, but what is known of the rich history of…

Graphic design

How Diverse Representations of Old Age Can Shift Our Perspective on Aging

In 1981, a design competition for children launched a road sign that would become one of the most ubiquitous images…

Design + Education

Designer + Educator J. Dakota Brown Is Untangling the Relationship Between Design and Labor

J. Dakota Brown studied graphic design at North Carolina State University and critical theory at the School of the Art…

Type Tuesday

A Subtle Sci-Fi Font For Not-Quite-Everyday Use

Name: Sagittarius Designer: Jonathan Hoefler Foundry: Hoefler&Co Release Date: 2021 Back Story: A few years ago, Jonathan Hoefler was working…

Branding

Design + Money

How a Band of Design Misfits Brought Anti-aesthetics to Bloomberg Businessweek

There was a time, around 2013–2016, when the most experimental magazine in the world wasn’t some Berlin fashion zine that…

Branding

Why Does Every Beer Look So Cool Now?

On a recent weekend afternoon, I found myself in my neighborhood grocery store contemplating a wall of beer. This section…

Branding

Not Junk Food, Yet Not Health Food—“Healthyish” Is the Latest Trend in Snack Branding

In 2017, Bon Appetit launched a spinoff website, Healthyish, centered around an ethos that, in its words, “sums up the…

Branding

Joe Biden’s Branding Was Both Traditional and Trippy, and It Looks Like the Future of Politics

When Democrat Jon Ossoff’s U.S. Senate race in Georgia was forced into a runoff, his campaign changed up its social…

Branding

As Social Media Reshapes Branding, Retail Stores Become More Like Sponsored Content

In 2001, students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, under the direction of architect Rem Koolhaas, published The Harvard…

Branding

Personal Branding Just Got a Lot More Branded

“Cae Sal” started with a video. It was 2018, and Molly Baz’s husband had gifted her a pair of Nike…

Design + Art

Tufting Has Become the “Designer’s Coloring Book”

Welcome back to Spotted, Eye on Design’s column that turns an eye on the styles and graphic trends you’re seeing…

Illustration

The Beauty and Violence of Ernst Haeckel’s Illustrations

If you’re a designer and a lover of nature, then you might have on your shelf one of the many…

Design History 101

Porto’s São João National Theater Offers a Lesson in Design as Public Service

The design process is always the result of a negotiation. Design for and from a theater is no exception, reaching…

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