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Here are a few sites, pictures and articles that have caught our attention recently.

ASCII madness from self-described ‘non-annoying’ interface designer Nick Kwiatek.

Robert Newman’s classic Malcolm X cover for the Village Voice. Photo: Eve Arnold.

Everything that’s wrong with media today, via BrainPickings.

An alternative take on Rock Paper Scissors (top and above) from Christoph Niemann’s Abstract Sunday posts for the New York Times Magazine. Niemann will be speaking at Making Magazines 2012, an essential one-day conference at St Bride Library, London, on Friday 16 March.

Photographer Philip Sayer launches a new website (see Phil’s portrait of John McConnell, below, for the Reputations interview in Eye 81).

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week, honest.

Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History by Robin Kinross, now in its reprinted second edition, was the second book published by Kinross’s own Hyphen Press. Here (for the first time online), we publish Matthew Carter’s review of the book from Eye no. 7.

Below: cover of first edition, 1992.

Like a number of words used by typographers, writes Matthew Carter, ‘modern’ can mean more than one thing. Two accepted uses are a particular style of typeface derived from eighteenth-century models, and the name of a typography of German origin carried by its exponents to the US in the 1930s. Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History covers both these subjects as well, but as parts of a much broader and deeper redefinition of ‘modern’ as applied to typography.

Robin Kinross dates modernity – implicit in the very idea of printing – as an explicit attitude that began in about 1700, when printing began to be used as the means to describe itself. Here, ‘printing’ is the practice, ‘typography’ the ordering of that practice by instruction, and in the manuals of Moxon (1683-84) and Fertel (1723) typography became articulate and therefore modern. This ‘Essay in Critical History’ gives prominence to typography’s more rational and articulate practitioners, unapologetically, since its argument is that ‘typographers need to incorporate critical reflection into their own practice’. Some of the usual heroes get short shrift: Baskerville, Bodoni and most of the private presses are ignored because their books were ‘fine printing’, to be admired rather than read. Many of the illustrations are of functional typography: railway timetables, an invoice form, guide books, a paperbound novel, printers’ manuals, music, catalogues, a road sign. Jan Tschichold is quoted at the outset and sets the tone: ‘Standardization, instead of individualism. Cheap books, instead of private-press editions. Active literature, instead of passive leather bindings.’

Most histories of typography, particularly British ones, have been histories of traditional typography that treat Modernism as an aberration. Studies of Modernism, for their part, have tended to isolate it from contemporary traditional typography. This book aims to break down that separation by considering issues other than visual appearance, and by avoiding the ‘bibliophilic nostalgia’ so prevalent in typographic culture. This leads to some interesting reassessments, for example of nineteenth-century typography.

In the conventional, account, the industrialisation of printing caused a degeneration in typographic quality so severe that it took the ‘revival of printing’ movement at the end of the century to rescue it. The version here is more even-handed: it describes well William Morris’s reforming ‘typographical adventure’, inspired by a dreamlike view of an incunabular past in which all books were works of art. But it also gives due weight to the importance of lithography and photography, to a functional tradition as vigorous in typography as in engineering and building, and to the proliferation of typefaces that yielded, among others, sans serifs and boldfaces. Alongside the reformers of the Arts & Crafts movement, it puts the personification of the best of the trade values, the great American printer Theodore Low De Vinne.

There are excellent sections on the early twentieth-century printing reform movements, the ‘new traditionalism’ of Bruce Rogers and Stanley Morison, and the hegemonic influence on British typography of the Monotype Corporation, which had as its ideals historical authenticity and transparency to the reader. The cultures of printing in Germany and the Low Countries are also examined, but the heart of the book is in the chapters on the ‘new typography’ and the ‘emigration of the modern’. These describe brilliantly the ‘heroic’ period of Modernism in Central European typography, beginning at the end of the First World War, flourishing in the 1920s and 1930s, and surviving the dispersal of designers caused by the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933.

Top and below: Spreads from the first edition of Modern Typography (1992), designed by Kinross and typeset on a Macintosh SE30.

The origins of the new typography lay outside the world of printing and typography, in the coalescence of the ideas of the Futurists, Dadaists, the De Stijl group and the Russian Constructivists – essentially artistic movements. Jan Tschichold was its leading propagandist; his definition in 1925 of ‘elemental typography’, quoted here in full, emphasises order and organisation, the use of sans serif type, the rejection of capital letters and of ornament, and the adoption of the DIN standard paper formats. Tschichold – together with Paul Renner, designer of Futura, and Georg Trump – taught in Munich, not at the Bauhaus as is often thought (Kinross warns us against the careless assumption that ‘Bauhaus’ and ‘modern’ were the same thing in typography: the Bauhaus had no fully fledged typographers).

The Modernist designers, accused of cosmopolitanism, who were forced to emigrate from Central Europe from 1933 on, found refuge mostly in the English-speaking world. Many were assimilated into postwar American corporate culture as consultant designers, with profound and still evident effect. Tschichold worked for a time in England and seems to have begun there his abandonment of Modernism in favour of traditional design, a famous apostasy caused, he said, by the identification of Modernism with Germany hence with National Socialism, and by his disillusionment with the values of technical progress. These opinions were voiced in a debate in print with the Swiss designer Max Bill, staunch Modernist and father of the school of ‘Swiss typography’ that rejected traditional and early ‘elemental’ typography alike.

The historical account ends with the energy crisis of 1973, and with a plea for continuity of ‘the modern’ in a time of rapid technical change and postmodern pastiches. The 32 pages of illustrations, photographed for the book at a consistent reduction of one-third actual size, have good explanatory captions. At the end of the book is a commentary on sources, chapter by chapter, that amounts to a concise critical bibliography of the subject.

Robin Kinross wrote, designed, typeset and published this book. This puts him in the same rank as some of the typographers he most admires, such a one as Joseph Moxon defined more than 300 years ago, ‘who by his own judgment, from solid reasoning within himself, can either perform or direct others to perform from the beginning to the end, all the handy-works and physical operations relating to typographie’ – and can write the history too! As befits an advocate of rational and articulate design, he writes a clear and elegant English. This book is deliberately brief and has, therefore, no ambition to be exhaustive. As a brief history of typography it is difficult to think how it could be better. For professional typographers, students and the new lay audience of people introduced to typography by personal computers and desktop publishing, this is the best account of how modern typography got to be the way it is.

Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History
Robin Kinross, Hyphen Press First edition, 1992, reviewed by Matthew Carter in Eye no. 7 vol. 2. Second edition available from HyphenPress.com

Above: cover and spreads from 2010 printing of the second edition of Modern typography (2004), designed by Françoise Berserik and set in Fred Smeijers’ Arnhem typeface. Second spread (above) shows a recent book designed by Karel Martens as (as Kinross explains in Eye 80), an ‘exemplification of the values that the book argues for.’

Matthew Carter’s review was originally published in Eye 7, 1992.

See also Rick Poynor’s Reputations interview with Robin Kinross in Eye 80.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press any moment.

John McConnell, the subject of Eye 81’s Reputations interview, has been quietly leaving his mark on British design for nearly five decades. Here, we show some of the logos and wordmarks he has created for a wide variety of clients.

Top: a double-f ligature, 1981, for publishers Faber & Faber. McConnell later became a director of the company, and stayed until 1996.

Below: cover for The Singing Detective, 1980s, an example of McConnell’s series design, incorporating a ‘clapperboard’ motif with his Faber panel.

Below: logo for National Grid, 1989, launched 1990.

Below: logo for Unicorn, 2005, the children’s theatre on the banks of the Thames in London.

Below: logo for Japan Festival, 2001 – in McConnell’s description, a ‘classic bit of type and the Japanese flag.’

Below: 1987 logo for Fred Tow.

McConnell recalls: ‘He invented an inflatable aeroplane. So I was thinking of the Lilo, that squidgy shape, and I realised that the shape could be made our of eighteenth-century calligraphic handwriting.’

Above: Biba logo, late 1960s. The wordmark was devised from one of the alphabets available at photo-lettering company Face, of which McConnell was a director.

Read the full text of the John McConnell Reputations interview in Eye 81.

John McConnell studio site: mcconnellstudio.com.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press any moment.

Exactly four weeks from today there will be a one-day magazine conference at St Bride Library in London, organised by Jeremy Leslie (of magCulture) and our own Simon Esterson. ‘Nobody can be sure what the future holds for our industry,’ says Leslie, ‘but we hope to offer some guidance.’ The event is for everyone who’s involved in making magazines, or who would like to be: editors, art directors, designers, and students doing design or journalism courses.

The speaker list includes art directors Marissa Bourke (Elle, above) and Andrew Diprose (Wired UK, below, The Ride); Newspaper Club co-founder Russell Davies; award-winning Reader’s Digest UK editor Gill Hudson; Church of London founder Danny Miller; and Eye favourite Christoph Niemann, famed for his New York Times illustrations, his Abstract Sunday blog for the NYT and his many stunning New Yorker covers (top). (See ‘Storytelling giant’ in Eye 72.)

‘The past few years have seen huge changes to the way magazines are created and consumed,’ says Leslie, who blogs regularly about his personal and professional passion for magazines at magCulture. ‘The result has been a rebirth in creativity, as editors and designers seek to make their magazines stand out through design and image. ‘Making Magazines 2012 features a group of people at the forefront of this development, providing a snapshot of the industry today.’

Attendees can expect everything to do with making magazines, from print to digital … from indie to mainstream … from form to content.

Topics covered include the iPad, fashion, technology new and old, general-interest, specialist and customer publishing, illustration and cover design … plus a bit of history. There will also be a conference newsstand with new and vintage magazines for sale.

In an informal session, organisers Esterson, Leslie and others (including Eye’s editor John L. Walters) will talk about (and show us) their favourite magazines.

Making Magazines 2012
Friday 16 March. 9.30 am (registration from 8.45), Bridewell Hall, St Bride Foundation, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8EE UK Tickets £85 / £70 FoSB members. Students and other concessions £50 / £45 FoSB members. Book through Eventbrite. Making Magazines is supported by MagCulture, Eye magazine and St Bride Library. Ticket price includes a complimentary copy of a special publication based on the day and made on site, which will be distributed after the event.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press any moment.

Véronique Vienne reviews ‘Pierre di Sciullo, En esthète de gondole’ at Galerie Anatome in Paris.

At the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, an exhibition of Stefan Sagmeister’s work – under the somewhat disillusioned (or ironic?) title ‘Another exhibit about promotion and sales material’ – is about to close. Meanwhile, a more modest show has just opened at the Galerie Anatome, five metro stops away, near the Bastille, featuring the work of Pierre di Sciullo.

The similarities between the two men are unnerving. How can two individuals, both obsessed with the declamatory power of slogans, both set on neutralising its sedative effect, finish up at opposite ends of the spectrum? While Sagmeister is celebrating the commercial dimension of his work, di Sciullo is defying it.

The di Sciullo show is not a retrospective but an installation. ‘The theme of this exhibition is not what I have done so far but what I am heading toward,’ he says, explaining why some of his major projects are not represented. On the ground floor of the gallery are three of his latest outdoor signage projects – for the tramway system in Nice (above), for Le Serpentin (a large residential development outside Paris), and for the Bibliotheque National de Richelieu, the venerable Paris public library (below).

But the main event is upstairs, in the spacious white loft of the Galerie Anatome. There, near the rafters, a series of di Sciullo’s calligraphic posters (top and below) hang like laundry. Originally created for a street festival at Villeneuve-sur-lot in May 2011, the slogans on the hand-painted signs lampooning the work ethic.

Di Sciullo is a master of the spoonerism, the malapropism and other forms of wordplay. He is known for having designed a number of witty typefaces – Quantange, Minimum, Aligourance – that tease the eye as much as the brain. ‘But I decided not to show any of my computer-generated letterforms,’ he says. ‘I wanted to celebrate that part of my work that involves the entire body rather than just a couple of fingers tapping on the keyboard.’ Many of the items on display, from his large watercolours to his stained-glass tiles, are one-of-a-kind graphic artefacts.

For visitors unfamiliar with di Sciullo’s work, this abridged selection could be misleading. Much of his best known work is missing; but, in the French ‘Oulipo’ tradition, he believes that frustrations – omissions, restrictions and hindrances – are necessary to fuel the engine of creativity.

So I left the show feeling somewhat let down, but not cheated. I had not seen enough — but what I saw had reinforced my respect for eccentric French graphic artists, who are a breed apart. Di Sciullo’s installation is clearly not just ‘another exhibition’.

Pierre di Sciullo En esthète de gondole Galerie Anatome 38 rue Sedaine 75011 Paris Jan 19 to March 24, 2012 Review by Véronique Vienne

See ‘Read this aloud’, Ursula Held’s article about Pierre di Sciullo’s experimental alphabets in Eye 23.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press any moment.

Admiring Cooper Black is like being the most popular kid in school and falling in love with the ugliest person in the class, writes Armin Vit in Eye 48. Sharing this secret, telling people – your friends – about it is hard, and must be done gradually, little by little, until you are comfortable enough to be seen in public together – holding hands, laughing, kissing, using Cooper Black.

At the beginning there will be guilt and shame. Some mockery is to be expected, but the rewards will be many and the pleasures enormous. The first step in fully understanding Cooper Black is to accept the fact that it is ugly: sexy ugly. There is no reason to feel attracted to it at first glance. The proportions are bizarre, the serifs are some crossbreed of whale and polar bear, its weight is too heavy at minimum and the ‘o’ is tilted beyond belief.

How then, can a typeface with so much against it be so popular? So coveted and desired? That’s easy to answer. Cooper Black has personality, charisma, love. It’s jovial, good-natured, approachable. It is surprising, turning up in the strangest places: dentists’ offices, laundromats, restaurants, markets, gift shops. Everywhere. Everyday. In our lives. It’s Cooper Black.

Cooper Black typeface, designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper of Bertsch & Cooper, Chicago. First released by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Founders in 1922.

With help from Herman.

Armin Vit’s ‘Devotion’ article was first published in Eye 48 (below), which uses Cooper Black as its ‘guest’ display typeface.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

Here are some links to sites, images and texts that have caught the attention of the Eye team over the past week or so.

Beautified Words – Rob Walker on surrogate love letters in Design Observer.

(See also ‘Out of hand’, David Crowley’s article about handwriting in Eye 80.)

Adrian Curry selects his favourite ‘movie posters’ of 2011 on Mubi.com, with work by Chris Ware, Michael Gillette (below) and Brian Oakes.

Sonic Notify, in use at Made Fashion Week and on the road with Lady Gaga.

Illustrator Malika Favre traces the process of her Kama Sutra book cover project for Penguin on the Volcom blog.

Social Media Explained with donuts via Brain Pickings.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

A major exhibition opens today at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich: ‘100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design’.

Above: Max Bill, Negerkunst – Prähistorische Felsbilder Südafrikas – Kunstgewerbemuseum Zürich, 1931, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Poster Collection, © ZHdK.

Top: Max Huber, Sirenella – Palais de Cristal – Palais de danse, 1946, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Poster Collection, © ZHdK.

Below: Hans-Rudolf Lutz, Typografische Monatsblätter 12/1977, Cover, 1977 © ZHdK.

At the core of the exhibition is continuous frieze of 100 posters from the period 1912-2012, but every form of Swiss graphic ephemera is represented, from magazine covers (above) and plastic bags (below) to club flyers and yogurt ads, with a mix of famous classics and less familiar items from Museum für Gestaltung’s legendary archive.

Above: E+U Hiestand, ABM Plastic Bac, 1960s. Photo: Umberto Romito © ZHdK.

Below: Carlo Vivarelli, Merce svizzera, 1952, Poster © ZHdK.

Below: Herbert Matter, Pontresina, Poster, 1936 © ZHdK.

Below: Cornel Windlin, mit – ohne – dank – Stadt Zürich – Schauspielhaus – Saisonvorschau 2009-10 © ZHdK.

There will also be a series of talks and events at Zurich’s design museum, including:

• ‘Typography can be art under certain circumstances’, Wed 14 March, 6 pm with Wolfgang Weingart and Ludovic Balland, visual designers, and curator Barbara Junod.

• ‘Handmade. Current tendencies in design practice’, Wed 16 May, 6 pm with Dafi Kühne and Eric Andersen, visual designers, and curator Bettina Richter.

Below: Anonym, Let’s groove to the Früehligsputz!, Party-Flyer, 1997 © ZHdK.

100 Years of Swiss Graphic Design, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Ausstellungsstrasse 60, CH-8005 Zürich

10 Feb-3 June 2012, Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, Wed 10am-8pm.

Further reading:

Reputations interview with Bruno Monguzzi in Eye 1.

Reputations interview with Hans-Rudolf Lutz in Eye 23.

‘Swiss radical’ by Richard Hollis in Eye 64.

‘Buying into the Norm cosmos’ by Liz Farrelly in Eye 70.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue, Eye 81.

Working under the moniker Bigger Than Giants, Austin-based designer Ryan Rhodes has developed a distinctively off-kilter, handcrafted aesthetic, writes John Ridpath. In his own words, Rhodes has taken on ‘a ton of local design’, and his visual style is well-suited to a client base that includes a community-supported farm (owned by his landlords), a ‘salt of the earth’ family-owned sausage company, the Austin Film Festival and local ‘surfer-western’ musician Trey Brown.

Top: Ryan Rhodes painting a delivery truck for community-supported farm Johnson’s Backyard Garden (JBG), 2010. ‘We hand-painted all the trucks’, he explains. ‘Tons of fun!’

Above and below: Identity design for JBG, 2010.

When I interviewed Rhodes for ‘In the neighbourhood’ in Eye 81, he mentioned that he hoped to set up a new creative partnership with fellow local designer Caleb Everitt – and I was pleased to hear from Rhodes that the two are now officially working together as LAND. ‘Currently, the work on the LAND site is a mix of projects we’ve worked on individually,’ he explained in an email, ‘but we wanted to show how our work meshes well together.’ And last week, LAND teamed up with Renee Fernandez for a collaborative wall painting for local hot dog joint Franks (design and details below), who are currently asking selected artists to produce a new mural each month.

Below: ‘Call for entries’ poster, Austin Film Festival, 2011.

Studio websites: LAND, Bigger Than Giants

For more, read ‘In the neighbourhood’ in Eye 81 (below), #1 on the Eye blog about Mark Gowing Design and #2 about Maddison Graphic.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue, Eye 81.

From store signing to ticketing, customer correspondence, leaflets, advertising and websites, typography plays a crucial part in shaping the identity of a department store group such as John Lewis. In Eye 81, Jim Northover examined the corporate identity adopted by the company over the past 50 years (see ‘Trust in Modernism’). Here, we revisit his take on the retailer’s evolving typographic style.

Top: Construction workers erect modified Gill Sans lettering for the new John Lewis department store at Westfield Stratford City in east London – the partnership’s first custom-built store in twenty years. Photograph: Michael Walter at Troika, 2011.

As an early adopter of Modernist themes in retailing, John Lewis used Helvetica from the 1970s to the 90s. A classical note was struck in 1989 with the introduction of Elan capitals for the store names in the John Lewis Partnership (including many acquired stores such as Coles Brothers and Pratts, which were still known by their original names until the 1990s).

Above: JLP Logo designed by Hans Schleger (aka Zero), 1960s, entwines the letters of the company’s acronym. An article in the in-house magazine, Partnership Gazette, described the process: ‘The problem was how to link them, to make ot just a monogram, but a symbol that would express something of the special unifying character of the Partnership’.

Below: Diamond shaped bags designed by Peter Hatch, 1960s.

At the time, John Lewis design co-ordinator Douglas Cooper wrote: ‘The principal typeface which was used to identify the partnership was Helvetica. When it was first brought here from Switzerland in the 1960s, it was a wonderful example of clean, Modern typography. Since then it has been used by all and sundry as the chief letter form for information graphics. We wanted to find another typeface, exclusive to us.’

In a booming, competitive period for high street retailing, the choice of Elan (Albert Boton, 1985) promised more stylish, less utilitarian department stores. However, Helvetica remained in use for everyday communications across the business.

Above and below: Lloyd Northover’s 1989 identity for John Lewis linked its department stores and Waitrose supermarkets by introducing a diagonal stripe motif. The design was used at different scales throughout the business, from trucks to carrier bags, and even as a security pattern on customer account statements. Company and store names were set in Elan capitals.

It was not until this century that Gill Sans was introduced as the John Lewis type family. Interviewed in 2001 for the John Lewis in-house magazine, Cooper had acknowledged the need for further change: ‘The new typeface we will be using on everything from signage to stationery is very elegant and looks contemporary – ironic really, as Eric Gill designed it in the 1920s.’

Above: External signage, 2003. Example of John Lewis identity design from the John McConnell era. Design: Pentagram.

As the John Lewis brand replaced nearly all other store names, the typeface was adapted by Pentagram to create John Lewis and Peter Jones logotypes, with chamfered initial letters that echo the diagonal pattern that forms part of the identity. In 2001 a bespoke version of Gill was introduced to create better legibility and flexibility, and in 2009 a further range of weights was designed. The light and ultralight weights initially appeared in the fashion and beauty departments and in Edition magazine. Now, as part of a consistent typographic policy, the full range of Gill adaptations is in use across all departments and communications.

Above: Writing paper. Design: Flo Bayley, 2003-04. Example of John Lewis identity design from the John McConnell era. Design: Pentagram.

Below: Packaging (2011) for the Juno glassware range, to be launched in 2012. Design: Irving & Co. Photography: David Parfitt.

See Jim Northover’s article ‘Trust in Modernism’ and our Reputations interview with John McConnell – both published in Eye 81 (below)

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies. The latest issue, Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’. Eye 82 will be on press soon.

A few links to sites, images and texts that have caught our attention over the past week or so.

A Valentine’s day redesign is being planned for Harper’s Bazaar. Robin Derrick, former creative director of British Vogue, is a consultant. Terry Richardson snapped the cover (top) which features Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies includes includes a series of in-depth ‘Unforgettable Art Supply Moments’. Thanks to Hilly Beavan for this link.

Below: Godfrey Reggio’s movie Koyaanisqatsi sped up 1552 per cent to last just five minutes (but without Philip Glass’s score). By Wyatt Hodgson.

Eye editor John L. Walters made a guest appearance discussing recent magazines (including Random Spectacular, below) with Monocle founder Tyler Brûlé and host Gillian Dobias on last Saturday’s The Review on the Monocle24 internet radio station.

Above: spread by Jon McNaught from Random Spectacular.

Independent magazines Boat and Ammo are inviting illustrators from in and around London to ‘create a depiction of their own London – mapped in a way a stranger could follow.’

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

Our insatiable hunger for images is a peculiar thing, writes Rick Poynor in his latest Web-only Critique. We can never have enough of them. We progress urgently to the next meal without having fully digested the last. How much can you eat? It’s like a kind of race that often doesn’t seem to be driven by anything greater than the need not to be caught out, so that when someone mentions something that stands every chance of being forgotten tomorrow you can breathe an inward sigh of relief and say, ‘Oh yes, I’ve seen that.’

Life online has taken this to a new level of obsessiveness. Sites like 50 Watts and But Does It Float certainly perform a kind of service by showing us interesting images we might not have seen. I just checked But Does It Float and today it has photos of coloured smoke followed by paintings by Scott Greenwalt followed by drawings by Moebius followed by … the big images look great (as always), there are cool poetic headlines and links to follow if you really must have information. Maybe later. Down you scroll. The container has only the most basic shape. It’s like a big white pipe down which the image-stuff gushes in an endless stream.

Above: Cloicthech Ruis Cre: Belfry of Roscrea, County of Tipperary, Woodburytype.

Where does this leave a printed publication like the first issue of Amc2 (top)? In some ways, the journal, published by the Archive of Modern Conflict, might seem to be part of the same phenomenon. It caters to a readership presumed to be fascinated by images of every kind and the sheer range of material within its 152 pages exceeds that of any site I can think of online. One minute you are studying nineteenth-century photographs of the bell towers of Ireland (above), and then, with a mighty crash of gears, the focus switches to a Rock Hudson cut-out book (below) issued in 1957 by Universal Pictures (dress the film star as a diver, cowboy or city slicker). Within a few pages, it’s time to sober up with some hand-painted silver gelatin prints of cranial-restorative surgery produced in France during the First World War.

The visual stories, some only a single image, follow each without obvious linkage, or in some cases any form of preamble. One of the journal’s most mysterious inclusions, though that’s saying something, is a seven-page selection from ‘an archive of the Royal Horse Artillery’ taken in the 1960s (above). The photos show the men posing indoors in their uniforms; the shots are homoerotic, even kinky, and were clearly taken for private purposes. In a picture that resembles a missing scene from Monty Python, synchronised riders mounted on static wooden horses practise keeping their balance while leaning backwards in their saddles.

Above: Pablo Picassso by Raymond Fabre, Studio Visages, Perpignan, silver gelatin print, 10 x 8cm, France 1955.

What sets the AMC and its journal apart from many of the Internet’s image channellers is that it is a real, though private, archive in Kensington, London, grounded in tangible things. Each story has a code number relating to the archive’s cataloguing system. Initially devoted, when it began in the late 1980s, to photos of war and conflict, the collection now encompasses all kinds of material ‘dating from prehistory to the present day.’ Several years ago, the AMC became a publisher of notable photography books such as Nein, Onkel (2007), which showed Nazi soldiers off-duty, and The Corinthians (2008), a collection of Kodachrome slides.

Amc2 aims to ‘illuminate lost corners of our cultural life’ and for many of the image sequences the editors provide well-written and informative introductions. Without this context, postcards of early twentieth-century Belgian dog carts, and photos (above) of Gordon Earl Adams’s time machine, supposedly constructed in the late 1920s in the basement of his house in Shepherd’s Bush, would be merely whimsical (man and machine seem to have disappeared without trace). Amc2’s opulently image-filled pages strike a finely calculated balance between discovery and enchantment, elucidation and pleasure.

Above: Gustav Le Gray, The Brig, albumen print, 32 x 40.2cm, France, 1856.

The assertive yet restrained typography and layout underscore the project’s seriousness of purpose. The journal marries the serendipitous collisions of online image-sharing sites with a commitment to editorial selection and shaping and the physical embodiment of meaning on paper. By enshrining a few choice artefacts in print, AMC makes a more persuasive claim for their historical interest and documentary value than if it were to unleash a boundless, context-free and ultimately self-cancelling stream of immaterial jpegs online.

The journal contains no credits for editing, writing or design. I asked about this and was told that it reflected a team effort. The AMC website gives no information about the archive’s history, or about its editors, Timothy Prus and Ed Jones, who are notoriously hard to pin down. This might be deliberate mystification to provoke interest, or simply a true expression of who they are. Scarcity and silence: it makes a bracing change from the unstoppable flow.

You can buy Amc2 journal from amc2.org.

More about the Archive of Modern Conflict at amcbooks.com.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies. The latest issue, Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’. Eye 82 will be on press very soon.

The album cover may have lost its mojo as far as contemporary culture is concerned, but its classic era (from Blue Note to 4AD, say) maintains a powerful grip on the imaginations of music-loving designers, writes John L. Walters. Clever parodies or pastiches such as Cal Schenkel’s scabrous Sgt Pepper’s reinvention for the Mothers’ We’re Only In It For The Money (see Eye 35), or Joe Jackson’s affectionate Blue Note homage (bottom) still pack a certain punch.

Yet until I read Covered (Easy on the Eye Books, £17.99), I’d no idea just how many copycat album covers had been unleashed on the world. Record industry veteran Jan Bellekens has built up a huge collection of the music design sub-genre, and Covered displays nearly 1000 of them – good, bad and mostly very (and sometimes deliberately) ugly. But highly entertaining.

Covered’s covers are organised alphabetically by name of the imitated artist, usually displaying the original album at a slight rake. Publisher Simon Robinson adds credits, witty captions and typographical critiques. He even dares to suggest that Electric Frankenstein’s tribute to the cover of Blue Öyster Cult’s Agents of Fortune works better than the John Berg original.

Sometimes there are sound reasons for the appropriation. The 7″ cover (above, artwork/photo by Howard Grey) for the Hee Bee Gee Bee’s ‘Meaningless Songs’ (Original Records, 1980), is a nicely crafted copy of the Bee Gee’s 1976 Children of the World cover (below) with the addition of hairdryers.

Others use the cover artwork as a kind of tribute, to the artists’ better known heroes – both musicians and image-makers.

Above: Tindersticks, Donkeys 92-97 (Island, 1988). Below: Stan Ridgway, Anatomy (New West Records, 1999). Artwork: UMod007. Just two of several tributes to Saul Bass’s cover for Duke Ellington’s Anatomy of a Murder soundtrack album (top) in Jan Bellekens’ collection. (See review of the new book about Bass in the forthcoming Eye 82.)

And some sleeve designers have simply lifted an idea or image without scruples, perhaps thinking the original too obscure for anyone to notice. And some appropriations, such as Stereolab’s close copy of Win Bruder’s cover for Gary McFarland’s The In Sound (for their 1998 album of the same name), credit the original designer. But the majority of the covers in Covered are so instantly recognisable that they work as a kind of shorthand, and there is a certain amount of fun to be had in seeing the myriad ways certain visual memes – such as the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover photo, Michael Jackson’s Bad or Thriller or Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland (below) – have inspired legions of imitators.

Above: Original UK Electric Ladyland cover designed by David King (see Reputations in Eye 48) with its notorious photograph by David Montgomery. Myriad copies below.

Above: Audio Active, You’re No Good (Dream Machine, 2000). Artwork: Tatsuya Horin.

Below: Fun Lovin’ Criminals, King Of New York (Chrysalis, 1997). Artwork: Morph Iconography / Gerb / Dr Revolt. Photo: Bob Gruen.

Sex Pistols, ‘Substitute’ on the ‘Virgil’ label.

Above: the copier copied. Joe Jackson’s I’m The Man (Island, 1979), art direction by Michael Ross & Joe Jackson and photograph by Bruce Rae, is recycled for a 1995 single (below) by Fitz of Depression on Yoyo Recordings. Photograph: Reuban Lorch-Miller.

With the possible exception of Joy Division (whose Disney tribute T-shirt recently excited controversy), few music deities (or dinosaurs) and their graphic designers emerge unscathed from Covered’s collection of copycats. They’re all here: AC-DC, Black Sabbath, the Clash (whose London Calling Presley pastiche is perhaps too famous to feature), Elvis (both kinds), Kraftwerk, Ornette Coleman, Roxy Music, The Smiths, Ohio Players, Pink Floyd and the Velvet Underground and Nico, whose Warhol ‘Peel slowly’ cover has inspired a whole bunch of bananas.

Covered is available from Easy On The Eye books in Sheffield.

Below: photograph: Francis Wolff, design by Harold Feinstein (see ‘Cool, calm, collected’, Eye no. 1).

Eye 76 is a music design special issue, still available from the Eye shop.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue, Eye 81.

In Eye 81, for the article ‘In the neighbourhood’, I interviewed three designers who work with local clients, writes John Ridpath. Maddison Graphic, a studio run by brothers Edward and Alfie Maddison and based in the small Cambridgeshire cathedral city of Ely, has deliberately kept the London at a comfortable distance, preferring to work with churches, beer festivals and local businesses.

Amongst the work featured in the original article was a decorative glazed screen for St Luke’s Church in Cambridge (above), and wayfinding and information panels at Ely Cathedral. Continuing the religious theme, Maddison Graphic has recently started working with the Methodists. ‘We had assumed that they had seen our signage at Ely or the work at St Lukes’, said Edward Maddison when I caught up with him earlier this month. ‘But in fact they were drawn by our boats poster.’ (top)

Above and below: The Fruitful Field. An identity and book for the Methodist Church introducing their ‘Fruitful Field’ project.

Again, working local seems to have paid off. ‘Our client has been very enthusiastic and supportive about our ideas and we have been able, with him, to make work that we are really proud of’, Edward explains. ‘It could be argued that working locally and on a small scale has allowed us the freedom to produce a body of work that is quite personal, and has in this instance attracted a client that, rather seeking than the services of the nearest graphic designer, actually wants what we do specifically.’

Above and below: Set of four books that provide guidance for the Methodist Church’s Ministerial Development Review process.

Below: Tea towel, for Christmas.

Studio website: Maddison Graphic

For more, read ‘In the neighbourhood’ in Eye 81 (below) and #1 on the Eye blog about Mark Gowing Design.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue, Eye 81.

In Eye 80, Anne-Marie Conway wrote about Momoco’s way with on-screen typography (see ‘Credits where due’). The London-based studio, set up by Miki Kato and Nic Benns twelve years ago, specialise in film and television titles, with a portfolio spanning romantic comedy, generic horror, sci-fi thrillers, comedy and drama. For this Type Tuesday, we take a look at some of their more recent work.

Top: Titles for environmental thriller Ice (2010).

Above: Title sequence for recent BBC drama Great Expectations.

Below: For Channel 4 comedy series Fresh Meat.

Above: Credits for Luther (BBC).

‘Credits where due’ by Anne-Marie Conway was originally published in Eye 80, Summer 2011.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

A few links to sites, images and texts that have caught our attention over the past week or so.

German stamps by Berliner Henning Wagenbreth via Fonts In Use (below).

The New Aesthetic (via James Bridle).

Classic illustrated jazz covers by David Stone Martin (below) from the Birka Jazz Archive.

Brian Knight box art via Matt Curtis. See ‘Artwork and play’ in Eye 72.

Gallery of designs submitted to Occupy Design (above). See also Noel Douglas’s article ‘Higher ground’ on the Eye blog.

Occupy Wall Street will hold a ‘State of the Occupation Address’ tonight (30 January) at 7pm at Housing Works Bookstore, on 126 Crosby Street in New York City. 10,000 copies of The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City (by NYC General Assembly) will be freely distributed at the event (top and below). (The publication was featured in a Vanity Fair article under the heading ‘The Revolution will be Graphic-Designed’.)

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

When I visited Athens in February 2010, the Greek government’s spiralling debt crisis was just beginning, writes John Ridpath. I was in the capital to attend Design Walk, a biennial festival showcasing the work of local design studios (see ‘Athenian walkways’ on the Eye blog). ‘Poles apart’ provided a central theme that the participants explored in broadly aesthetic ways, and heated debate on the final day saw designers examine the failings of country’s design education and question whether there has ever been such a thing as ‘Greek design’.

Over the past two years, the financial crisis has deepened dramatically. So I was delighted to see that Design Walk 2012 (3 > 5 February) is not only going ahead, but specifically aims to tackle the difficult question of the country’s future, taking up the theme ‘Greece 2022’.

Above: Image for design walk by This Is Amateur, one of this year’s participating studios. ‘During the last few decades we became very distracted by blind consumerism … we almost forgot our values and distinctive characteristics and let ourselves be absorbed by the global economic system.’

Solon Sasson, who was invited by Design Walk’s organisers to develop the ‘Greece 2022’ narrative framework, believes that what Greece needs most desperately is innovative business ideas. ‘These ideas will not come from politicians, policy makers, bankers or economists,’ he says. ‘They will come from people who have the ability to place the user, customer or visitor at the centre of a creative process … Greek designers need to step up and demand a more central role in business.’

That might mean bringing crucial product and service development skills to corporations, for instance. Similarly, by engaging the users of Greece’s ailing public services – and addressing their real, specific needs – Sasson believes that designers have the power to reinvent and improve everything from hospitals and schools to local authorities. ‘Sometimes it is not just a matter of having a big budget to spend, it is a matter of knowing how to approach and solve problems.’

Design Walk’s participating studios seem to agree. ‘Designers research, analyse, think and create’, say Rena Chrysikopoulou and Michael David Ochs from Pi6 (see my 2010 interview with the studio). ‘Greece has a lot of problems at the moment and it needs a lot of creativity to solve them.’ Similarly, This is Amateur believe that a newly ‘humanistic’ approach to design could lead the way in reinventing the way that Greeks live, work and think.

Above: Image for Design Walk by designpark.

Sasson doesn’t think Greece will be a rich country in 2022, but he remains positive that it will be an exciting and optimistic place to be. ‘Young people will grow up dreaming of establishing their own business, rather than craving a safe but uninspiring zombie-job in the public sector … We will see more Greeks involved in the real economy, which requires companies to design and actually make things. As a result, Greek designers will be better off and more valued in 2022 as businesses realise they need their skills more than ever.’

Below: Illustration for LifO magazine by This is Amateur. ‘This is what we think the new Drachmas should look like!’

3 > 5 February 2012 Design Walk 2012 Various venues, Athens, Greece.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

The new Design Museum, slated to open in 2014, is cause for celebration in London’s design community, writes John L. Walters. And you can forgive its founder Sir Terence Conran a certain amount of triumphalism as he outlined the museum’s origins in the V&A’s Boilerhouse project, more than 30 years ago. At the press launch (at the Kensington Odeon on Tue 24 Jan) he recalled lobbying the V&A’s then director Roy Strong, who ‘huffed and puffed’ and then said ‘you could have the old boilerhouse.’

Top: Sir Terence Conran at the Commonwealth Institute, the site of the new Design Museum, 24 Jan 2012.

After 25 shows in five years, the V&A’s curators ejected the design cuckoo in their decorative arts nest. In 1989, the Design Museum set up shop in their Bauhaus-like conversion of an old banana warehouse in Butler’s Wharf (on the then neglected south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge), its popular, if overflowing current home.

Below: Conran (left) and architect John Pawson at the press launch. Screen shows a mock-up of the new Design Museum’s exterior.

The new incarnation, to be housed under the hyperbolic parabaloid copper roof of the disused Commonwealth Institute, will give the Museum three times the space, and twice the number of visitors, according to Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic. There is also hope that its new location, in the area of London sometimes called Albertopolis will help revive the flagging fortunes of Kensington High St.

‘It still feels very daring,’ said John Pawson, the architect charged with transforming the interior. ‘So it’s more about re-tuning the existing architecture.’

Below: first model of the permanent exhibition by Studio Myerscough.

The new museum’s top floor will house the permanent collection, free to all visitors, in an exhibition designed by Studio Myerscough (see profile in Eye 79). The lower floors, including a newly extended basement, will hold the temporary exhibitions, a library, studio and workshop space for school parties, a café and the all-important shop.

The interior (above and below) of the Commonwealth Institute, unused for more than a decade (apart from the occasional film shoot or fashion event), is still quite awe-inspiring.

It feels a bit like one of Ken Adam’s film sets for a Kubrick or Bond film. Relics of its institutional past are still installed in the entrance (below).

This is reached via a covered ‘moat’ through the incomplete, Sylvia Crowe-designed garden.

The ‘re-tune’ will involve removing all the existing floors and stairs. However it is good to know that this example of 1960s Modernism (completed by RMJM in 1962) will get another lease of life in the hands of Pawson and OMA (for the surrounding residential development), whose Rainier de Graaf said: ‘Buildings of the 60s are often vilified. We love this era.’

Leaving the press view, I jumped on to a passing Routemaster bus (another mid-century flashback), whose conductor recalled going to Commonwealth-themed parties in the building, and was thrilled to hear about its new incarnation. All that’s needed is another £18m.

Back in Shoreditch, Morag Myerscough and her partner and frequent collaborator Luke Morgan (above, left) demonstrated model they had built for the new Museum’s interior.

‘It was a big pitch, up against some impressive agencies, and the tendering process took more than a year,’said Myerscough. ‘We won the job in August and started work in September. There wasn’t a model then, so Luke and I built one.’

She explained that the brief from Design Museum had evolved since their first meetings, and that several elements of the interior, such as the location of stairs, had changed. In contrast to the Commonwealth Institute’s present void, the new museum’s top floor sites new rooms around the periphery: members’ rooms, café / restaurant, activity rooms, etc. The model gives them some idea of the way the swooping roof affects the interior space.

The brief for the permanent collection is complex: the Heritage and Lotteries Fund requires that this part of the museum and its collection to be accessible to the public and free of charge. The route through the building to its site on the top floor means that everyone visiting will get a feel for the whole museum. ‘Visitors will see elements of the permanent collection as they go up from the entrance,’ said Myerscough, ‘and the concept car in the lobby gives you an idea of how much space there is.’

Below: Myerscough making the model.

Below: the Design Museum’s short film about the project.

The New Design Museum from Design Museum on Vimeo.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

The essay is a form of writing that has largely fallen out of the public’s consciousness, writes Alexander Ecob. Opinion pieces and short-form non-fiction are consumed primarily through newspapers and blogs, while what was once a glut of recognised ‘essayists’ a hundred years or so ago could now probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Should the essay be embracing technology – or vice versa – in an attempt to reinstate itself as a viable and important area of writing? The essay form could be a perfect fit for the e-reader of today. Some publishers, however, still have faith in the most traditional of delivery methods: a clothbound hardback book.

Notting Hill Editions is one such publisher. Launched in May 2011 with a small, well conceived series of books, NHE is an attempt, according to founder Tom Kremer, to give the essay ‘the same prominence as an art form that it enjoyed up until the early to mid-twentieth century’.

Series design brings with it its own set of challenges and limitations, but designers FLOK have developed a subtle and flexible approach to the design. The type-only treatment of the covers, with matched and centred type, allow the books to sit together as a series, with colour changes in the linen and letters providing variation between volumes.

Design flourishes continue inside the covers. Details such as coloured drop caps and page numbers make a big difference to the books’ interiors – an area broadly devoid of experimentation for most publishers – and contribute to the series’ overall impression of quality and consideration. A generous margin and well spaced type mean that the books look good up close as well as from afar. They are meant to be read, not just admired.

The books look gorgeous lined up in a set, but is such a design strong enough to hold its own in a crowded bookshop environment? NHE has plans to sell the books in branches of Waterstones, where the wilfully arcane cool of the classic covers could easy get lost in the visual noise of biographies and bestsellers.

The obvious solution would be the exploitation of online outlets, and NHE are keen to grow their reputation on the Web as well as in print. Their website takes the same pared-back approach as the books, and includes an online journal that members of Notting Hill Editions can read (membership is free).

See nottinghilleditions.com for details of its publications, membership and its Essay Library, which holds more than 100 celebrate essays by authors such as James Baldwin, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.

Are we living in a golden age of type? This is a time of consolidation. Established foundries are revisiting libraries that were perhaps hastily digitised in the early rush prompted by postscript, and releasing OpenType versions wrote Catherine Dixon in Eye 71. New designs are calmly considered and updated replete with the ‘accessories’ (true italics, non-lining figures, language extensions, etc.) increasingly expected by the market.

At its best, this trend results in significant improvements to beloved ‘classics’. At its worst, there is homogenisation. International font browsing is easy, with more foundries represented online, especially the smaller outfits.

And at the same time, the revival reigns, with obscure source material providing quirky ligatures and swash characters that bring a distinctive additional flair.

Serifs are the new sans – or at least on the upswing (Frutiger serif, above, is one of the more calculated pitches to sell the idea of a serif / sans serif ‘matched pair’ in place of the hit ‘single’). The newest and most formally intriguing serif in a while is OurType’s Lirico (2008, below), designed by the German calligrapher Hendrick Weber, which is definitely on my ‘to try’ list.

Another font on my list is Samba (below) by the Brazilians Tony and Caio de Marco. Though it is distributed by Linotype, it speaks to the ‘opening up’ of the global type market – and it is fun. The uncompromisingly eccentric and beautiful expert variant cleverly marks this character font as something altogether more accomplished.

Catherin Dixon is a freelance designer and writer who teaches at Central Saint Martins.

Type Tuesday is our weekly column on typography and type design, featuring a mixture of brand new articles and material from the extensive Eye archive. For more Type Tuesday articles, click here.

This article was first published in Eye 71, a typography special. Back issues still available.

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It’s available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. Eye 81, has the theme of ‘Designers and clients’; Eye 82 will be on press next week.