Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones but Print Can Never Hurt Me: A Letter to Fiona on First Reading "The End of Print"

Dear Fiona:

You are turning two in a few weeks and I think it’s high time you understood a thing or two about graphic design. After all, you are part of Generation ABC and what are ABCs, after all, but typography?
READ MORE

MARIAN BANTJES

Plastics: An Apoplexy

I woke up in the middle of the night stewing about plastics. In particular, the continuing, insidious use of excessive and totally unnecessary plastics in packaging. While waking up with these thoughts is slightly bizarre, feeling enraged about excessive plastic packaging is, unfortunately, a regular occurrence in my little household of one.
READ MORE

JOHN FOSTER

Accidental Mysteries, 12.19.10

Welcome to Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of curiosities set aside for your perusal and enlightenment.
READ MORE

RICK POYNOR

Agency or Studio? The Dutch Design Dilemma

There was a time when Dutch graphic design led the world. It looked unequivocally Dutch because it came from a national modernist tradition of typography and montage to which it continually referred. Today, the country's graphic design is much less obviously Dutch. Instead, international conventions of advertising, marketing, branding, fashion and popular culture shape its graphic routines and styles of address. Designers offer the same rationales heard everywhere that a market-driven view of graphic design calls the shots.
READ MORE

CARL SCHOONOVER

Portraits of the Mind

Take a brain out of its skull, cut a thin slice, examine it under a microscope and you will see nothing but grey, barely differentiated matter. You might be astonished then, as late nineteenth anatomists were, to discover that when treated in the right manner the blank slate contains a universe teaming with small parts, thousands upon thousands of lines wrapping around each other in terrifyingly convoluted patterns.
READ MORE

JOHN FOSTER

Accidental Mysteries, 12.12.10

Welcome to Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of curiosities set aside for your perusal and enlightenment.
READ MORE

BECOME A FAN ON FACEBOOK | FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

OBSERVATORY ARCHIVE

On Velvet Touch Lettering

Barbara Kruger

On Ulysses

POEM OF THE WEEK

"Metropolitan Nightmare"

A poem by Stephen Vincent Benét.
READ MORE

RECENT BOOKS RECEIVED

How to Design a Light
Design Museum

Designers' Identities
Liz Farrelly

Twenty Minutes in Manhattan
Michael Sorkin


WEEKLY EMAIL: DECEMBER 22, 2010
FEATURED THIS WEEK : JESSICA HELFAND Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones but Print Can Never Hurt Me: A Letter to Fiona on First Reading "The End of Print" Dear Fiona: You are turning two in a few weeks and I think it’s high time you understood a thing or two about graphic design. After all, you are part of Generation ABC and what are ABCs, after all, but typography? READ MORE
MARIAN BANTJES Plastics: An Apoplexy I woke up in the middle of the night stewing about plastics. In particular, the continuing, insidious use of excessive and totally unnecessary plastics in packaging. While waking up with these thoughts is slightly bizarre, feeling enraged about excessive plastic packaging is, unfortunately, a regular occurrence in my little household of one. READ MORE JOHN FOSTER Accidental Mysteries, 12.19.10 Welcome to Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of curiosities set aside for your perusal and enlightenment. READ MORE RICK POYNOR Agency or Studio? The Dutch Design Dilemma There was a time when Dutch graphic design led the world. It looked unequivocally Dutch because it came from a national modernist tradition of typography and montage to which it continually referred. Today, the country's graphic design is much less obviously Dutch. Instead, international conventions of advertising, marketing, branding, fashion and popular culture shape its graphic routines and styles of address. Designers offer the same rationales heard everywhere that a market-driven view of graphic design calls the shots. READ MORE CARL SCHOONOVER Portraits of the Mind Take a brain out of its skull, cut a thin slice, examine it under a microscope and you will see nothing but grey, barely differentiated matter. You might be astonished then, as late nineteenth anatomists were, to discover that when treated in the right manner the blank slate contains a universe teaming with small parts, thousands upon thousands of lines wrapping around each other in terrifyingly convoluted patterns. READ MORE JOHN FOSTER Accidental Mysteries, 12.12.10 Welcome to Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of curiosities set aside for your perusal and enlightenment. READ MORE		BECOME A FAN ON FACEBOOK \| FOLLOW US ON TWITTER OBSERVATORY ARCHIVE On Velvet Touch Lettering Barbara Kruger On Ulysses POEM OF THE WEEK "Metropolitan Nightmare" A poem by Stephen Vincent Benét. READ MORE RECENT BOOKS RECEIVED How to Design a Light Design Museum Designers' Identities Liz Farrelly Twenty Minutes in Manhattan Michael Sorkin
Privacy Policy \| Contact Us You are subscribed as \| Unsubscribe Copyright © 2009 Observer Omnimedia LLC. All rights reserved. Design Observer, P.O. Box 159, Falls Village, CT 06031, USA