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 ...

This book compiles a selection of Heimo Zobernig’s book covers, newspaper cut-ups and pages from books creating a unique self portrait of the artist.

THIRD REPORT Two of the protagonists of the final iteration of the exhibition project The Gutenberg Galaxy at Blaker were makers of books who have had a profound influence on the archival practice of Guttorm Guttormsgaard. They were also experts in the destruction of books. A friend of Asger Jorn (1914– 1973) once noted how the Danish artist “presented a danger to any book collection” as he used to tear out pages from books belonging to others in order to create his own. Jorn’s compatriot Rudolf Broby-Johansen (1900–1987) was also a notorious book slaughterer, leaving behind a trail of books full ...

This twelfth SDUK broadsheet examines the diverse means by which individuals and communities build lasting or fleeting bonds. Coinciding with the conclusion of Crossings: Itineraries of Encounter, the Blackwood’s 2021–22 lightbox series, this issue, BONDING, echoes themes seen throughout Crossings: migration, diaspora, borders, and archives. Where the lightbox exhibitions examine image-making practices, this SDUK issue engages print culture in new and recurring formats including visual storytelling, poetry, a letter exchange, and a recipe. Food is the source of many enduring cultural bonds, and thus one might be tempted to start from the gut: See Diasporic Dumplings (p. 27) for a site-responsive ...

Artists’ books, which once allowed artists to avoid meddlesome institutions and galleries in producing and distributing artistic work, today have a paradoxical existence. On the one hand, there are the extremely rare founding books, termed “first edition” or “original”, and, on the other hand, there are “facsimile” editions, which entered the artist’s book realm to counteract the scarcity of the originals by offering re-enactments and reinterpretations of famous titles. This essay underlines a curiosity for practices of appropriation by artists and publishers, and aims to expose methods and discourses in the production of facsimile artists’ books. Bilingual in English and French.

An extended reflection on the work of designer Karel Martens, originally given at Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam. “A keynote talk on Karel, I chose to explore how his work—sometimes framed as an “independent” practice—is instead a case study in collaboration at multiple scales: with his family, students, and other designers; with commissioners and existing contexts; and even with paper, ink, and printing materials themselves. The talk also delved into the entangling of my professional path over the past decade in supporting and presenting his work. It’s an homage to a truly remarkable human being, from whom I learn every day.”

In Design by Accident, Alexandra Midal declares the autonomy of design, in and on its own terms. This meticulously researched work proposes not only a counterhistory but a new historiography of design, shedding light on overlooked historical landmarks and figures while reevaluating the legacies of design’s established luminaries from the nineteenth century to the present. Midal rejects both linear narratives of progress and the long-held perception of design as a footnote to the histories of fine art and architecture. By weaving critical analysis of the canon of design history and theory together, with special attention to the writings of designers ...

It feels as if there are more and more magazines about art, culture, lifestyle and the like, more and more titles, both local and international, both good and undistinguished. But what to do with them? Read and throw them away? Or stack and keep them after all? This text wonders about the (quality of the) quantity of art magazines and about what exactly defines those that survive even frequent changes of residence.

Devised and written by David Reinfurt, compiled and presented by Dan Fox, and produced in the context of ‘ALWAYS LIFT INKING ROLLERS WHEN PRESS IS NOT IN OPERATION. IF ROLLERS ARE LEFT TURNING ON THE DRUM THE INK WILL DRY FASTER AND THE ROLLERS WILL BE SUBJECT TO NEEDLESS WEAR’ organized by Will Holder at The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada.  “Things in their alleged places. Things where they think they should be, where they prefer to be. All of the things, just where they are. Things with things of their own. Things obeying no rules, following no orders, filling no ...

I Read Where I Am contains visionary texts about the future of reading and the status of the word. We read anytime and anywhere. We read of screens, we read out on the streets, we read in the office but less and less we read a book at home on the couch. We are, or are becoming, a different type of reader. How will we grapple with compressed narratives and the fluid bombardment of text? What are the dialectics between image and word? How will our information machines generate new reading cultures? Can reading become a live, mobile social experience? To ...

Immutable: Designing History explores the graphic genealogy of the document and its entanglement with statecraft and colonial(ism/ity). This is framed as a roughly 5,000 year chronology, imbricating the developments of money and writing from Mesopotamian clay tablets to distributed blockchain ledgers. Immutability figures as a design imperative and hermeneutic for considering securitization techniques (material, technological, administrative) against the entropy of a document’s movement through space, time and the political. This project is proposed as a counter-position to the imperatives of graphic design education, which foregrounds logos, books, websites and branding while passports, money and property deeds constitute the field’s more profoundly ...

Author Chris Lee in conversation with scholars Shannon Mattern, Francisco Laranjo and Lisa Gitelman about the new eBook Immutable: Designing History, which traces the evolving graphic strategies of documents, money and writing and their entanglements with statecraft and colonialism. This event took place online on June 15th, 2022.