A *New* Program for Graphic Design is a DIY textbook that synthesizes the pragmatic with the experimental to convey advanced graphic design principles in an understandable form for students of all levels as well as general readers. Rooted in three courses (Typography, Gestalt, and Interface) originally developed for liberal arts students at Princeton University, the book provides a broad introduction to graphic design and visual literacy, from Benjamin Franklin to Bruno Munari, Moholy-Nagy to Muriel Cooper and the Macintosh computer. Through a series of in-depth historical case studies and assignments that progressively build in complexity, the book serves as a practical guide ...

A *Pre-* Program for Graphic Design is a video-based companion to A *New* Program for Graphic Design, a DIY textbook that synthesizes the pragmatic with the experimental to convey advanced graphic design principles in an understandable form for students of all levels as well as general readers. Based on courses originally developed for liberal arts students at Princeton University, the book was derived from a three-day lecture series held in Los Angeles, delivered to a live studio audience and video recorded. The result is a broad introduction to graphic design and visual literacy, covering a wide range of topics, from Benjamin ...

Two signals of varying frequency and phase result in a perpetual infinity (figuratively and literally as it actually constructs itself in the shape of the infinity sign given the right starting values), drawing and redrawing itself over and over, a picture of timing and sequence in the center of the screen. The familiar resulting shapes are known as Lissajous curves after French mathematician Jules Antoine Lissajous and his “beautiful machine” of 1855. Devised to draw a picture of two superimposed systems falling into and out of phase, Lissajous’ machine was constructed of a pair of tuning forks placed facing at right ...

A recent Opinion piece from the New York Times (“Scorched Earth” by Robert L. Park) eulogized the political death of what had been derisively called “Al Gore’s Screensaver.” Since his vice presidency, Gore actively advocated The Trius Project — a satellite to be put into orbit around the Earth on a geosynchronous path (at position Lagrange 1) which would send back live images of both the whole Earth and the full Sun. This project was intended to feed a series of real-time displays, installed as screensavers on computers in U.S. public schools. Al Gore woke up one morning wondering if ...

The resulting flickering light repeats at a constant frequency between 8 and 13 Hz matching the brain’s alpha waves present in deep relaxation, such as drifting into sleep. When a viewer closes their eyes, sits close to the machine and the turntable is started, the flickering light induces waves of color and repeating geometric patterns that form and re-form in the mind’s eye. Ian Somerville described the experience in a letter to Gysin: Visions start with a kaleidoscope of colors on a plane in front of the eyes and gradually become more complex and beautiful, breaking like surf on a shore ...

This issue grew out of two physical incarnations of The Serving Library in 2011. The first took place from July 4–August 10 in the Walter Phillips Gallery of the Visual Arts department at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada. Here we set up a model of the library’s projected interior to house a six-week summer school titled From the Toolbox of a Serving Library. The school comprised daily morning seminars, supplemented by a few evening events. Each week was based on a specific component from a (Photoshop-proxy) digital software toolbox, in order to reconsider what a contemporary (Bauhaus-proxy) Foundation Course might ...

This issue doubles as a catalog-of-sorts to Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language, a group exhibition curated by Laura Hoptman at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from May 6 to August 27, 2012. It is a *pseudo*-catalog in the sense that, other than a section of images at the back, it bears no direct relation to the works in the exhibition. Instead, the bulletins extend in different directions from the same title, and could be collectively summarized as preoccupied with the more social aspects of Typography. In this way we hope to throw some *glancing* light on the exhibition. For ...

This Issue was produced under the auspices of the research program Dexter Bang Sinister at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, January 21 – October 28, 2012, curated by Rhea Dall. The program, devised by Angie Keefer, David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey together with writer-critic-curator Lars Bang Larsen, was based on Lars’s just-completed PhD dissertation at the University of Copenhagen, A History of Irritated Material: Psychedelic Concepts in Neo-Avantgarde Art. In practice, a large part of the so-called research played out in the form of an exhibition set up to explore the notion of *black & white psychedelia*— halfway closing the doors of ...

This issue was produced as part of The End(s) of the Library, a series of exhibitions at the Goethe-Institut New York Library organized by Jenny Jaskey from October 30, 2012 to June 21, 2013; hence the German theme. The Serving Library was resident for three months at the end of The End(s), from April Fools’ Day on, in the form of a hang of objects from our collection of source material. if all went according to plan, the end of the library show was marked by the launch of this issue. *Wie ein Pfeil lief ich einfach durch.* With many thanks to ...

This issue poses as a retroactive non-catalog for the group exhibition White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart at the Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania curated by Anthony Elms. As such, its nominal theme is Fashion. Bulletins from the edges of that world are from Angie Keefer, Robin Kinross, Joke Robaard, Brian Eno, Nick Relph, Eli Diner, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Stuart Bailey, Sarah Demeuse, Adloph Loos, Kuki Shûzô, Sanya Kantarovsky, and Perri MacKenzie.   AXIS THINKING Brian Eno A LIST OF INCORRECT THINGS Nick Relph A RUNNING COMPOSITION Perri MacKenzie BUTTONED-DOWN Robin Kinross DRY CLEAN ONLY Chris Fite-Wassilik HARDY PERENNIALS Stuart Bailey REGARDING ECONOMY Adolf ...

This issue loops around NUMBERS and was produced in the ambient glow of a reprogrammed electronic scoreboard clock which first appeared in Venice one year ago. Bulletins this time arrive from Angie Keefer, John Dewey and James Mclellan, James Langdon, Rosie Cooper, Mathew Kneebone, Philip Ording, David Foster Wallace, David Reinfurt, Cory Arcangel, Justin Warsh, Perrine Bailleux, Byron Cook and Tauba Auerbach, Dan Fox, Katherine Pickard, and Vincenzo Latronico.