Some U&lc.

Murray GM July 18, 2020

As promised here are a few pics from the copies of U&lc. that I picked up a few weeks back.

I always had mixed feelings as student when I leafed through U&lc. The covers and size promised so much but often it didn’t deliver (at least for the style/idea hungry design student I was back then). Probably because it was ultimately a trade rag (back then - early 90s, all I wanted was to get hold of Emigre or Form und Zweck). For me it often felt like the graphic design ‘establishment’.

However there were always moments and exceptions which meant I kept going back to the Art College library and picking up. Looking back over this sampling of 12 issues between 1982 and 1994 I’m struck by the type ads, the editorial content and the illustrative focus (which I’ve mostly left out of the pics - sorry). In the same way the Penrose is a time capsule so are these - and as with the Penrose, it’s about the trade as it was, and not so much about the possibility of what it might become.

Due to the scale there’s a lot of ‘lets make the type really big’ - which can be great but also leads to the feeling of emptiness I get.

There’s a lot about ‘digital’ and plenty of very 80s looking things.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad I picked these up, so many interesting and wonderful touches and such a pivotal part of graphic design history. In the pics above there’s a piece on Tiffany lamps set in the oh so 80s (at least to me) ITC Tiffany Heavy. The piece on t-shirts above with the lovely ‘city symbols’ touch reminded me of something Neville Brody said (on TV) at the time - “no ones says anything anymore, we just print it our our t-shirts” (badly remembered/paraphrased by me).

The 1957 Penrose Annual - a graphic design time capsule

Murray GM July 11, 2020

I know it’s been a long time since I posted, but hey, quite a lot has been going on over the last few months ;)

I picked up a few editions of U&lc from Matt Lamont and he also had this 1957 Penrose Annual - Volume 51. It may be a little dog eared but I could not resist it. The cover was enough but then Matt shared some of the inside and I had to get it.

Being a Graphic Arts trade annual it’s an incredible blend of writing from the time, trade ads and technique examples. Best of all that means, stock variations, inserts, overlays, print variation and some wonderful ads.

Some here are some of the things that caught my eye. Also at the bottom I’ve added the contents pages for reference, incase there's something someone is looking for.

First up here are a few spreads:

Here’s a sampling of the wonderful illustrations and print techniques.

Then there are these great ads, like this for Linotype and then the two for type. Love seeing the Nebiolo ad.

This one is particularly close to my heart, for Penguin.

And finally a few more pages and details from the articles.

As promised here are the contents pages. If there’s something you see here and want, add a comment and I’ll see what I can do.

The vast A-Z of The Designers Republic

Murray GM December 21, 2019

I’ve had this a while and finally gotten around to posting it. Mostly because there’s so much of it! AZTDR or A-Z of The Designers Republic is a vast body of work from the Sheffield duo. Chocked full of commercial, personal, political, cultural and random pieces. What makes it even richer is that the kickstarter version Unit Editions put together has tonnes of extra swag!

For people who went to design school in the UK in the 90s, DR were the coolest of cool. Every degree show had more than a few wannabes attempting to copy their style. The edition of Emigre with their cover and profile was one of the hottest items amongst me and my peers, and it’s still difficult to find (thankfully Letterform Archive now has the full edition online and in high res). Back then all things Japanese and Manga-esque were hot and DR channeled that perfectly. They blew apart the entrenched modernist graphic design with an assault of noise, layers, colours, fun and flippancy, all that pseudo intellectual designer bullshit didn’t stand a chance. Part punk, part techno and all future.

The main book is (as always) beautifully put together by the Unit Editions team. I really love this reverse treatment for the highlighting:

As I said it’s got a lot in it. I love these monographs as they always show lots of prep work and ideas, not just the finished pieces - so much more to be discovered there. Here’s just a few spreads and pages from this 512 page, very hefty tome.

With the main book came another book or catalogue of their studio work. It’s black and white, noisy and almost zine like. The back cover is perfect and seems to nail who they are in this simple and wonderful typographic gag.

Of course that was not all that was in the package. There was a bunch of ephemera, a tote bag and stickers!!

It’s one of the best packages I’ve received in a long time and thoroughly cheered me up.

However, it’s sad that with all the current political horse shit going on, this particularly salient piece of advice once again fell on deaf ears. Oh well time to start fighting hard again.

Here’s the book https://www.uniteditions.com/products/a-z-of-the-designers-republic

Baseline

Murray GM December 1, 2019

I was digging through my library and found four issues of Baseline. I’d forgotten how good it was! The issues are from 1999, 2004 and 2 from 2005 (# 27, 44, 46, 48) and all have ‘poster’ cover wraps which make them feel oh-so-special.

Looking back on them there’s so much to love (which I think I missed back then). The larger format gives the designers lots of space to play with, and they aren’t afraid of white space either! It’s also way quirkier than I remembered.

Below are a selection of spreads from them. One of the most noticeable things is the proportion of text on the page. It’s tiny. Admittedly the small font and large page real estate is a factor but still. It’s way more a visual canvas than a journal. The grid is always evident even in the experimental pages or when they switch an article to landscape - which I really hate (sorry, I know, it changes pace, interrupts reader, forces new perspective, but I hate the switch mid mag).

These article lead pages are so gorgeous and at this scale pretty luxurious.

The face below is the poster cover wrap of issue 48 (designed by HDR Visual Communication). That issue also has the layout gem below where the illustration breaks not only the grid but also the page. Lovely touch but registration must have been fun.

Here’s a link to the online Issue Index - looks like it covers all issues to No 63 (1979-2018)

Celebrating W.A Dwiggins, the first "graphic designer"

Murray GM February 25, 2018

Before you pounce on me for the title, I know he wasn't the first ever person to practice the various crafts that make up graphic design. But William Addison Dwiggins was exceptionally talented in all things graphic design - illustration, typography, book design, calligraphy, layout, advertising, information design. And more importantly he was first to coin the term "graphic designer" back in 1922 to describe what he did. So in my reckoning he gets to be called the first.

I'd heard of Dwiggins but it wasn't until I visited the Letterform Archive that I really got to know his work, and his brilliance. As a graphic design student in the UK, most of the historical design teaching focussed on British graphic designers like Abram Games, F.H.K Henrion etc. Or on graphic designers that influenced the look of Britain like Hans Schleger and then on the truly historical type designers. I don't remember ever hearing about Dwiggins (this is probably just me being a bad student). So for me it's been a wonderful awakening to his work.

When the Letterform Archive announced a kickstarter to publish a new book W.A. Dwiggins: A Life In Design, I had to get a copy. I'd seen his data visualisation artwork and the fabulous book designs for Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde and H.G Well's Time Machine for Random House (1929, 1931) at the archive and I'd fell in love with the work. The illustration, colour work and detailing is incredible, here are a few pics from my visits.

I'd been following the book creation and growing ever more excited about my copy and last week it arrived. It's written and designed by Bruce Kennett and it's a true labour of love. Spanning Dwiggins' career from childhood and at almost 500 pages with 1200 images/illustrations it's incredibly comprehensive. The mostly chronological structure, tied to place is a great way to situate his work historically and supply context. It's wonderfully written and helps get a sense of Dwiggins the man as much as the work. It's the first major publication from Letterform Archive and they've done a fantastic job - I'm eagerly awaiting their future publications.

The book

From the moment you open it you get a sense of the love for the subject. Touches like the digitisation and creation of Dwiggins' type Electra for the project and the fabulous end papers are beautiful additions. Every aspect from credits to section divides has been carefully designed to 'be' Dwiggins, to reflect him. And the more I read the more I begin to understand his engagement with the world through his design.

Once you dive into the book, it's a sumptuous affair. The photography is great and really helps relay the form. The denseness of the content is fantastic and it packs a lot into the pages, but it is designed beautifully so it retains a sense of space, lightness and rhythm. This makes it both readable and browsable. I already know this will be a book I pick up again and again each time discovering something new and wonderful.

Here are a few spreads:

For me one of the most inspiring and beautiful things about Dwiggins is his attention to detail. There's always an elegant use of colour and ornament in everything he created. And it's his blend of skills; typography, calligraphy and illustration that delivers that. It's a good reminder that design (at least great design) comes from a combination of different crafts.

The other thing about Dwiggins that resonates with me was his engagement with information design. His data visualisations and charts are incredible and his explorations and advice around the practice of "graphic design" is brilliant. This piece on using charts to convey ideas and information is fantastic. It's from 1922 and you can see the direct thread from these ideas to today's data visualisation gurus like Tufte and Few.

The user centric nature of the headline is still some of the best advice I've come across for creating charts and data visualisation:

take the shortest route to their understanding

Accompanying that is the underlying idea of how powerful data visualisation can be (Dwiggins knew a thing or two):

Graphs stamp impressions on the brain

Here's some more of Dwiggins' data visualisation.

And I can't not include these 3 items - mostly because I think they are great.

So that's a tiny taste of what W.A. Dwiggins: A Life In Design by Bruce Kennet has to offer.

If you love graphic design, this needs to be on your bookshelf. And if you are in San Francisco then you can get yourself along to the Letterform Archive and take a look at some of the original pieces shown in the book!