On My Shelf: The Metallization of a Dream

The best designed book about Eduardo Paolozzi, the volume that captures his work with the greatest visual immediacy and graphic excitement, was published nearly 50 years ago and has never been easy to find. The Metallization of a Dream was compiled with Paolozzi’s help by John Munday, a student at the Royal College of Art, designed by Munday, and printed, bound and published in 1963 by the RCA’s Lion and Unicorn Press.

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Funerary Portraits: Snapshots in Stone

For many people, a cemetery is a morbid location, a reminder of the hopefully distant but unavoidable end to our earthly tenancy. I have never been one of those people. I won’t say I feel at home in cemeteries (let’s not tempt fate too flagrantly) but these highly atmospheric and deeply revealing sites of remembrance have always struck me as some of the most fascinating places to visit when traveling.

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From the Archive: Raging Bull

In an essay for Design Observer, posted in 2005, my colleague Michael Bierut asked a provocative question: “What is the relationship of bullshit and design?” The vigorous dialogue that ensued revealed a surprising tolerance among some designers for the phenomenon. Whichever way you look at it, though, a too-ready acceptance of the idea of bullshit spells problems for design.

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From the Archive: Down with Innovation

Design thinkers like to talk as though we have somehow passed beyond the stage where the way things look needs to be an essential concern. Designers, browbeaten and demoralized, half seem to believe them. They have too readily accepted the caricature of themselves as airheaded stylists who care about insignificant niceties. In reality, visual form is a vital expression of culture.

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Rick Poynor is a writer, critic, lecturer and curator, specialising in design, media and visual culture. He founded Eye, co-founded Design Observer, and contributes columns to Eye and Print. His latest book is Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design.

Recent Book

Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Rick Poynor
Moravian Gallery, 2010
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