Design + Politics

With Powerful Visuals, Akademi Magazine Unpacks India’s Socio-political Issues

About a year and a half ago, peaceful protests broke out across India against the discriminatory government policies–specifically, the National…

Design + Politics

With Powerful Visuals, Akademi Magazine Unpacks India’s Socio-political Issues

The self-funded publication uses design to make the most consequential issues in Indian culture and politics more accessible to its readers

Words by
Ritupriya Basu

Published on
June 24th, 2021

Digital

Pioneer Works Is Rethinking What Online Cultural Programming Looks Like

When the pandemic hit and museums and galleries closed their doors, many were forced to quickly adapt their programming to…

Type Tuesday

Gravity is a “Multi-Width Variable-Monster” Inspired by ’60s and ’70s Grotesks

Name: Gravity Designer: Robert Janes Foundry: Dinamo Release Date: Around October 2021 (though can be downloaded by designers on request…

Books

Six Great Book Covers and the Stories Behind Them

A book cover has a challenging job. Not only must it represent the depth of knowledge between its pages, but…

Branding

Why Aren’t More People Paying Attention to Podcast Cover Design?

Podcasts are everywhere and nowhere. Unlike a book you might pass in a shop window or a song you might…

Magazines

Kinfolk Made a Magazine for Parents, and Yes, It Looks Really Nice

When you read the words “Kinfolk made a parenting magazine”, a certain image might come to mind: A mom…

Type Tuesday

Action Text Brings Personality and Bite to the Smooth World of Screen Type

Name: Action Text Designer: Erik van Blokland Foundry: Commercial Type Release Date: September 2020 Back Story: Here’s the thing: the attention span of…

Graphic design

Ontological Design Has Become Influential In Design Academia – But What Is It?

Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds — Anthropologist Arturo Escobar’s powerful argument for reimagining…

Op-ed

We Need Graphic Design Histories That Look Beyond the Profession

Graphic design history is, generally speaking, a history of professional practice. In text books, at conferences, and for college courses,…

Design History 101

Ken Garland Was Graphic Design’s Moral Compass

Ken Garland, who died in May at the grand age of 92, was an enigmatic figure in the graphic design…

Books

Jacob Lindgren Recommends 7 Publications That Take An Expansive Approach To Graphic Design

We think Chicago based bookstore Inga offers some of the most interesting graphic design titles out there, and we’re always…

Graphic design

Are Mockup Designers the Most Influential Designers of Our Era?

When trying to understand how cities work – how they develop over time and how their social lives have come…

Editors’ Picks

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…

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…

Design History 101

Revisiting Enzo Mari, the Design Maverick Who Left a Clear Message to Today’s Designers

Six years ago, back in 2014, I had the chance to sit down with Enzo Mari at his Milanese home.…

Profiles

Designer Rush Jackson on Making Work that Expands and Shapes the Black Cultural Lexicon

For Rush Jackson, the young artist and designer behind graphic design studio Onyx Self-Imaging, design’s value lies in its usefulness.…

Graphic design

Publishing Will Not Be Another Victim of the Pandemic

Spurred by the economic crisis of the coronavirus pandemic and social upheaval of the Black Lives Matter movement, independent publishers…

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…

Books

This Experimental Publisher Is Rethinking How Design Books Get Made

The idea of crowdfunding books on design is no longer a new concept. Since its inception in 2009, Kickstarter has…

Happy Hour

Beverage Branding That’s All About the Typography

Rich color is such a common feature of beverage packaging (and really, all kinds of packaging) these days that it’s…

Type Tuesday

Faubourg is an Unapologetic Ode to Parisian Vernacular Lettering

Name: Faubourg Designer: Marie Boulanger, with creative and technical guidance from Neil Summerour Foundry: Positype Release Date: April 2021 Back…

Ask a Design Educator

Design + Education

Creative Director and Teacher Forest Young on Designing a More Inclusive Future

Forest Young’s career has spanned an impressive range of disciplines and contexts. He was recently named Wolff Olins’s first Global…

Design + Education

Offshore Studio’s Isabel Seiffert on Her Teaching Practice + Merging Concept and Form

Isabel Seiffert is one-half of Offshore Studio, along with Christoph Miler, a design studio based in Zurich, Switzerland. Seiffert engages…

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…

Design + Education

Educator David Jon Walker on Transitioning Between Communities Without Losing a Sense of Self

David Jon Walker is an assistant professor of graphic design at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, as well…

Graphic design

Designer, Educator + Publisher Kathleen Sleboda on Online Archives and Plural Narratives

Kathleen Sleboda’s work traverses disciplines, often involving acts of making, curating, collaborating, and documenting. Sleboda has been teaching at the…

Magazines

Dot Dot Dot Is the Most Influential Design Magazine You’ve Never Heard Of

“Why another graphic design magazine?” asked the cover of the first issue of Dot Dot Dot, published in April 2000.…

Type Tuesday

Blood, Bile, and Phlegm—All Poured into One Stylish New Type Family

Name: Immortel Designer: Clément Le Tulle-Neyret Foundry: 205TF Release Date: April 2021 Back Story: Immortel, the first retail typeface by Paris-based…

Design + Diversity

There Is No Such Thing As Neutral Graphic Design

What does it mean to design “normal” things for “normal” people? Western society defines certain individuals and communities as average…

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