The Age of Data. Embracing Algorithms in Art & Design

Art is constantly evolving, encouraging experimentation, and using artificial intelligence to create entirely new realities in this evolving digital age. Artists now use data as a medium of expression to break new ground while simultaneously redefine the concept of art to revolutionize the world of design.

The Age of Data focuses on the approach, creativity, and aesthetics of a new generation of designers who are using data and algorithms to support their making. From graphic design to 3D animation, kinetic objects, real-time visuals, robotics, spatial installations, and a hybrid approach between the digital and analog.

This volume introduces you to the biggest names in the world of data-driven design and presents their most important work to date. Recorded conversations, interviews, and storytelling provide critical and theoretical insight into their vision, the challenges, concepts, and creative processes at large.

The Age of Data is a profound record and presents a new future in art and design practice. It is an invitation to explore this extraordinary movement where the practitioner, audience, and user experience the mixed reality of a digital, virtual, and physical world.

Manhole Covers of the World

You’ll find them all across the world, from Albania, Argentina and Australia, to the United States, the Vatican, and Vietnam. And yet maybe you’ve never even noticed them beneath your feet, hiding in plain sight. Manhole covers have been part of our world for thousands of years – intensely practical, functional objects, but at the same time featuring an infinite variety of designs, from austere and minimalist to playful and illustrative.

Manhole Covers of the World provides an insight into the fascinating graphic design language of these unique objects, and what they reveal about the societies that produce them. To maximize contrast and impact and to allow a focus on the essential the selected manhole covers from 79 countries are uniformly presented as black and white graphics.

Fundamentals of Design. Understanding, Creating & Evaluating Forms and Objects

What shapes exist?
What form-giving operations are possible?
What are the evaluation standards for existing objects and those to be developed?

These three fundamental questions, which every architect, designer and artist asks again and again, are addressed, systematically explained, and answered in three sections in this volume. Fundamentals of Design. Understanding, Creating & Evaluating Forms and Objects also provides readers with a set of basic tools that enables them to communicate better when discussing and explaining their own work with other creative people and other professionals.

The first part is a comprehensive compilation that identifies and describes all forms within objects. The middle section offers a qualitative overview of the possibilities with which form elements, forms, or objects can be developed and optimized. In the third section the methodology for the development of an own evaluation system is presented.

The objective of this work is to offer an orientation on the basics of design, combining the aspects of form, craft, content, and method into a holistic understanding of design.

Arabic Typography. History and Practice

Arabic has one of the world’s greatest scriptural traditions and is the third–most widely used script in the world. An innovate multi–disciplinary reference work, the first of its kind, this book is closely focused, deeply detailed, and richly illustrated. Arabic Typography. History and Practice offers the latest academic research and applied typography, combining history and theory with practical application.

The first part provides an in–depth synthesis on the typographic history and development of the Arabic script. The discussion is based on the contributions of a cohort of outstanding scholars who are breaking new grounds in pursuing research excellence, providing an unprecedented synthesis of recent scholarship. In the extensive second part, these foundations are complemented by a concise guide to Arabic typography addressing all relevant typographic parameters through the lens of a design practitioner.

Typography. A Manual of Design

Typography. A Manual of Design is the legacy of Emil Ruder, one of the originator of Swiss Style, famous throughout the world for the use of asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces and flush left, ragged right text. His holistic approach is still recognized as fundamental for graphic designers and typographers all over the world. This volume represents a critical reflection on his teaching and practice and a life- time of accumulated knowledge.
Beyond that, it is a comprehensive masterpiece seen in its overall structure: in the themes presented, in the comparison of similarities and contrasts, in the richness of the illustrations and the harmoniously inserted types. Behind the purely pedagogic examples of exact proportions, a rich, philosophical thinking shines through. Today, more than forty years after this book was first published, it is still widely used and referenced.

Grid systems in graphic design / Rastersysteme für die visuelle Gestaltung

Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914−1996) studied architecture, design and history of art in Zurich and worked as a graphic designer and teacher. His work is recognized for its simple designs and his clean use of fonts, shapes and colors, which still inspires many graphic designers throughout the world today. Since the 1950s grid systems help the designer to organize the graphic elements and have become a world wide standard.

Grid systems in graphic design / Rastersysteme für die visuelle Gestaltung provides guidelines and rules for the function and use for grid systems from 8 to 32 grid fields which can be used for the most varied of projects, the three-dimensional grid being treated as well. Exact directions for using all of the grid systems possibe presented are given to the user, showing examples of working correctly on a conceptual level. Or simply put: a guidebook from the profession for the profession, one of the most important books in the field since decades.

Graphic Design Manual. Principles and Practice / Methodik der Bild- und Formgestaltung

Armin Hofmann’s richly varied work is recognized for its reliance on the fundamental elements of graphic form – point, line, and shape – and the economic use of color and fonts.

The thoroughly revised edition of the 1965 design manual classic Graphic Design Manual. Principles and Practice is still setting standards. Especially in times of the return to clear and minimalistic geometric forms and patterns, his rich body of work serves as a perfect starting point for contemporary design practices.

Elements of image and form are analyzed and examined with regard to their inherent laws. To correspond to the contemporary design techniques, this new edition is divided into computer-system-friendly sections. Thus adapting Hofmann’s methods to the requirement of modern design practices and serving as a valuable handbook for a new generation of designers.

Cyrillize it! A guide on Cyrillic typography for graphic designers

Cyrillic is a script applied by more than 250 million people across Europe and Asia using more than 100 languages. Within the last 15 years it has become increasingly more visible, popular, and utilized in the West.

The Ukrainian author reflects on the relevance of Cyrillic in today’s world, looks at its history and current design trends, provides an overview of the typographic rules and offers practical advice on designing with Cyrillic type. Cyrillize it! A guide on Cyrillic typography for graphic designers also includes interviews with graphic and type design professionals.

In our globalized world, in which multiscripturalism is increasingly important, “Cyrillize it!” offers designers a method for professionally and successfully handling a different script system. Featuring a playful and esthetically appealing design, and a number of outstanding examples of contemporary graphic design, the publication is also of interest to everybody generally curious about Cyrillic design and related cultures.

The Narrative Power of Illustrations and Drawings – Mind the Gap

Drawing is the earliest method of visualization and leaving a mark, an archetypical means of expression and communication that is rooted deeply within us as proof of our own existence and presence. It constitutes the base of not only illustrative and artistic visual expression, but of any form of creative work.

The author’s uses her experience as an illustrator and teacher to avoid template-like schemes. Instead, she focuses on the intrinsic logic of things, their connections and relations, and the link between presentation and design, using numerous illustrations, explanations, quotations, exercises, examples, tips. How can pictures be used to tell a story, how are they made, and how do the head and hand collaborate in the creative process? Just as each image is unique, so are the individual intentions of artists.

“The Narrative Power of Illustrations and Drawings – Mind the Gap has one primary goal: to urge you to question the world with open eyes, set conventions aside, and engage with different mindsets, new perspectives and approaches with an open mind. Dare to be crazy, playful, and willing to say yes to any experiment, essentially throw all rules overboard in order to find (and return to) your own understanding.”
Ute Helmbold

Mono is the new Black. Monospace Fontionary

Monospace is on the rise and the design scene is thrilled by it. Mono is the new Black addresses function, aesthetics, and originality of typefaces with fixed character widths, which have become an indispensable part of the visual landscape of digital and printed media.

Beginning with a cultural-historical outline, Robert Steinmüller explores the relevant aspects of type history and reveals how closely interwoven type, technical progress, and social development are. Valuable and practice-oriented application tips as well as selected examples from very different areas form the centerpiece of his examination of non-proportional typefaces.

The monograph is rounded off by a comprehensive, inspiring and in this form unique typeface compendium, in which both renowned classics and creative new creations are presented in a concise form.

The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems / Gestaltungsprobleme des Grafikers

Müller-Brockmann’s book The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems / Gestaltungsprobleme des Grafikers aimed to solve the graphic designer’s problem of finding the appropriate contemporary form. It became a standard work that still serves as a historic practical guide well beyond the boundaries of Switzerland.

This edition from 2023 is an unabbreviated reconstruction of the original edition of 1961, as a hardcover with jacket. It includes the additions made by Josef Müller-Brockmann himself for the paperback edition of 1983.

In the first part, the path from illustrative to functional graphic design is traced, as well as the meaning of design elements, their use and effect in every area of advertising: business printed matter, advertisements, brochures, books, posters, and exhibitions. The middle section of the book contains fundamental thoughts concerning the work of the graphic designer. The chapter “Science and Visual Communication” covers the area of semiotics and communications research. In the last part, the systematic education of the graphic designer is presented by means of a comprehensive documentation.

Thus, the book offers graphic designers a valuable survey of the fundamental tasks of design.

Armin Hofmann. Reduction. Ethics. Didactics.

Armin Hofmann has influenced generations of graphic designers around the world with his work and approaches. Far removed from doctrinaire views, he exemplified a professional attitude that was characterized by the idea of reduction, a pragmatic outlook, and a deep sense of responsibility. Armin Hofmann. Reduction. Ethics. Didactics. provides a comprehensive overview of his creative work, his professional ethics, and the principles he developed and applied in his teaching.

It is structured along three levels: the in-depth examination of Hofmann’s work, his biography, and original texts on various aspects of his work. Guest contributions from former students and later renowned graphic designers and typographers, as well as fellow colleagues, paint a very personal picture and illustrate the worldwide influence of his work based on their own pieces.

This book was compiled almost exclusively from original sources, in particular from the extensive private archive, enabling a very authentic, profound, and multifaceted immersion into the legacy of Armin Hofmann.

How Communication Design Works. Principles, Inspirations & Challenges

The professional field of communication design is undergoing radical changes: An excessive flood of information, artificial intelligence, social media, easily accessible graphics tools, efficiency and cost pressure – all of this is putting pressure on communication designers, as a result of which they hardly have any time to think about their own actions. But more than ever before, the circumstances warrant a broad education and require us to think beyond the confines of our own profession.

The manual How Communication Design Works responds to the current situation in order to reconcile the discipline’s societal relevance with professional practice. Using examples and implementable suggestions, the authors worked out what really matters in visual communication today. They describe the interlinking of a wide range of fields along with their far-reaching consequences and take a close look at the current challenges. In addition, they examine the criteria that make up good design in great detail.

The theme that runs through the entire book is as follows: Communication design is always the result of the mindset of the people who operate within it. They decide how their actions influence communication, what values it conveys, and how we experience the world around us.

ez fraktal

The photo book ez fraktal (me self-similar) by artist Cihan Çakmak is dedicated to the themes of self-determination, trauma and longing.

The publication contains self-portraits and photographs taken over a period of seven years. It is complemented by quotes from over 13 years of collected night dreams, which together form the visual and narrative language. This publication presents the story from the perspective of a Kurdish-German woman, offering a voice that has rarely been heard in this form in Germany.

Road Works

Road Works Zine is a typeface specimen for the “Road Works” typeface, an experimental and variable font inspired by road cracks. The zine also serves as a font license. Additionally, the back of each zine is a poster showcasing the “Road Works” typeface in use, with eight different design options available. The typeface is a visual exploration of our ever-changing environment, serving as a limitless source of inspiration. Road cracks, in particular, became the foundation for the design. The font includes five stylistic sets in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. While letter variations are randomized, you can control them manually by selecting specific glyphs.

– Each letter is a unique depiction of a road crack.
– Letter “O” variations inspired by road hatches.
– Including symbols based on road markings.

For the posters, designer Olga Kuzovkina collaborated with eight designers, each of whom created a unique poster using their own visual language and approach. The front side is designed to resemble a red and white crosswalk, inviting you to physically or metaphorically step across and begin experimenting.

Idea & Font Design: Olga Kuzovkina
Poster designers: Alex Babariko, Vika Hermanenko, Vlad Boyko, Zhenia Katashynska, Maryna Zevako, Oleksii Salnykov, Olga Kuzovkina, Svitlana Korniienko

Grafikmagazin 01.25

As the name indicates, Grafikmagazin is a print magazine focusing on all things graphic design. Primarily it’s aimed at professional creatives and design students from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond.
Grafikmagazin presents outstanding work from graphic design, typography, illustration, photography, design theory, research, paper, and printing every two months. The editorial team of Grafikmagazin created a variety of sections and categories but selected focus themes for each issue, like “Typography.” The topics portray how imaginative, eclectic, and playful graphic design can be while featuring successful branding concepts and niche ideas.

The extensive “Showroom” section lets readers know other creatives and the stories behind design studios worldwide. The “Design and Research” category presents interdisciplinary projects that show how science and research can benefit from creative solutions and play an active role in graphic design. In the “Production and Publishing” section, everything revolves around print. You will find exquisite books, sophisticated annual reports, and high-quality embossed greeting cards. Also, the cover artists of each issue are interviewed or get to highlight their ideas.

Each cover is printed on a different paper, and the design interprets the particular Grafik+ theme more broadly or shares a fresh perspective on a unique design technique. The Grafikmagazin team, its correspondents, and freelancers are bound and driven by the firm belief that print is not dead. With the will to prove just how alive it is, and the motivation to start something fresh yet deeply traditional, they strive for nothing less than to create another print magazine that makes history.

Slanted Experimental Type 3.0

Following the success of the first two editions, Slanted Experimental Type 3.0 has evolved into an ongoing series, each edition exploring groundbreaking approaches in typography and graphic design.

The third edition, developed in collaboration with students from Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts under the direction of Prof.Lars Harmsen and Andreas Ruhe, introduces entirely new content, pushing the boundaries of creative experimentation. When borders are drawn arbitrarily, they often disregard geographical, ethnic, or historical realities, sparking tension and conflict. While these themes might seem distant from typography, applying such reflections to design offers intriguing challenges. Designers often grapple with their role in a consumer-driven system, questioning the purpose of their work. Yet, they hold the power to choose projects, cross boundaries, and explore uncharted paths.

This project delves into design strategies that embrace accidents, imprecision, and unconventional methods, showcasing fonts born from unique concepts or systems. From AI-generated typefaces to variable fonts, Slanted Experimental Type 3.0 challenges norms and redefines the design process. It’s an invitation to venture into uncharted territory, shift perspectives, and question the lines we draw—both in design and beyond.

 

second edition

Solomiya No. 4 – The Environmental Issue

The first monothematic issue of Solomiya-The Environmental Issue—brings together a collection of artists and researchers reflecting and advocating on behalf of Ukraine’s more-than-human communities and ecologies.

In collaboration with the Ukrainian Environmental Humanities Network (UEHN)—an international collective of curators, artists, and scholars—we’ve created an issue that celebrates the richness and complexity of Ukrainian landscapes. This issue offers a diverse range of perspectives, amplifying voices that challenge the colonial, imperial, and extractive narratives that have long shaped external perceptions of Ukraine’s environment.

Through written essays and visual works, the contributors take us on a journey across the country: from the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone in Polissya to the submerged ruins of the Kakhovka Dam in Kherson, from the vibrant wetlands of Odesa to the fertile yet threatened agricultural lands of Luhansk and Kropyvnytskyi. Shrinking rivers, displaced scientific collections, traditional ecological knowledge, nuclear legacies, and the scars of industrial agriculture are just a few of the urgent themes explored in this issue.

Postcard | Golden Poo with Neon Heart | Riso Print

Metallic-Gold shinny Poo-Emoji 💩 with Hearted Eyes 😍 in psychedelic neon colors.

Scope of delivery: Postcard
Idea & design: Typo Graphic Design ■ Manuel Viergutz
Format: 10,5 cm W × 14,8 cm H (DIN A6)
Paper: Sustainable Metapaper, warmwhite, extrarough 270 g/m2
Print: 5/1c ‼️ environmentally friendly risograph print (digital screen printing) with metallic gold + neon green + neon yellow, neon pink, neon orange 🌈 von www.drucken3000.de

Beautiful Madness – Art Writing as Art Curating

Curating exhibitions and “art writing” are closely related: both activities construct a meaningful narrative about artefacts and artists, both interact with a public, viewers/readers; both make space for the experience of art objects. For their work, curators and art writers tap the primary source: the living artist, their work and world. Both cherish a proximity to the maker, for it allows them to delve into artistic processes, consider things in a state of becoming. An essential tool for curators and art writers alike is the dialogue with the artist.

Mark Kremer has been writing, curating, teaching, and interacting with artists for decades. Beautiful Madness is an accumulation of his writings on contemporary art (1993–2023). The book gathers pieces along lines of affinity, themes, and attitudes, structured in five topics: Trace; Gesture; Rudiment; Polyphony; Fortitude. It mirrors his experiences with art curating, writing, thinking and is of value to anybody who wants to sharpen their pen, and rethink what curating might mean.

Mark Kremer (b. 1963, NL) is an independent curator and writer, based in Amsterdam. He studied art history, comparative literature, and film studies. Since 1987, he has been working in and with several art institutes, educational programs, and has curated numerous international exhibitions.

Featuring work by Absalon (Meir Eshel), Tiong Ang, Christiaan Bastiaans, Harmen Brethouwer, Hugo Canoilas, Lutz Driessen, Helmut Federle, Alicia Framis, Wineke Gartz, Rob Johannesma, Joan Jonas, Mike Kelley, Esther Kläs, Klaas Kloosterboer, Job Koelewijn, André Kruysen, Jos van Meerendonk, Almagul Menlibayeva, Aernout Mik, Pieter Laurens Mol, Astrid Nobel, Jan van de Pavert, Roee Rosen, Roland Schimmel, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lorelinde Verhees, Jeff Wall, and many others.

The World’s Best Typography—The 45. Annual of the Type Directors Club 2024

The TDC competition organized by the Type Directors Club of NY is to graphic design what the Olympics is to sport and the World Cup is to football: for those who take part, it is the ultimate challenge, and for those who watch, the winning works are quality benchmarks, intensive inspiration and trend radar.

The award-winning works sparkle with creative energy, explore boundaries, play with breaking rules and visual habits and impress with their excellent craftsmanship. They magically attract a second glance and stay in the mind. A tribute to the power of visual communication!

From kinetic typography to motion design, from packaging to magazines, from corporate design to spatial communication: the world’s most creative people compete against each other here and the winning works are breathtaking.

Molecular Typography Laboratory

Molecular Typography Laboratory by Kobi Franco is a speculative research project that delves into experimental typography, exploring the intersection of function versus aesthetics and content versus form. This profound study operates on the premise that Latin and Hebrew letters possess a molecular structure, examining how this assumption can be applied to alphabets and languages. It is an interdisciplinary endeavor that bridges the gap between design, science, and language.

The research is a deep and comprehensive exploration of the concept of “molecular typography.” It involves a series of over 150 tests, each designed as a structured “game” where Franco defines the rules, sets the stage, and selects the participants. These tests have led to the identification of 11 key themes: foundations, language, gender, formula, weight, 3D, gravitation, generative research, color, word play, and the relationship between type and image.

The book features four illuminating essays that provide historical, cultural, and academic insights into typographic research and is accompanied by the website themtlab.com with additional, animated materials.

A laboratory of pseudo-scientific Latin and Hebrew typography!

CONTENT

  • Inspiring visual representations of Latin and Hebrew letters.
  • Methods and rules enabling a rhizomatic exploration of experimental typography.
  • The project received the New York’s TDC awards.

ABOUT

Kobi Franco is a Tel Aviv based designer, researcher, curator, and the Head of the Master’s in Design Program at Shenkar College in Tel Aviv. He owns a leading studio specializing in design for culture and art. His work has been exhibited in a variety of exhibitions in Israel and around the world. The book Molecular Typography Laboratory is the result of five years of research in experimental typography. The project has been showcased in several exhibitions and has received numerous awards, including Typographic Excellence from New York’s Type Directors Club.

 

“The entire research project is very exciting if you enjoy systematically conceived experiments.”
Rudolf Paulus Gorbach
tgm-Blog

SPOD #2 Don’t do it yourself!

“With the ideal of self-empowerment on its banners, a plague is sweeping across our land, leaving behind neighborhoods disfigured by crappy home improvements, families devastated by poorly cooked gourmet meals, and piles of barely used tools, leftover consumables, and unfinished projects. This peculiar misery reaches us under the familiar initials D.I.Y., which means “Do it yourself.” The idea was well-intentioned, but its reality is uncanny.” — Lisa Anne Auerbach

The open-ended publication series Studienhefte Problemorientiertes Design SPOD makes historical and contemporary reflections on the social and political dimension of design accessible. It is a collection of irregularly appearing texts that critically examine the practical, cultural, methodological and everyday functions of Design. The problem-oriented approach aims to link design to the contradictions, potentials and circumstances of reality.

Based on a critical examination of the possibilities and limitations of Design, alternative models of Design are outlined that contradict the established market-based design practice.

A PASSION THING Issue No. 11

A PASSION THING is a magazine focused on people from around the world who are driven by this wonderful force we call passion.

A PASSION THING Issue No. 11 is a celebration of Austria’s unique charm and its entrepreneurs reflecting the passion for our home.

Featuring: Peter Phobia, Pauline Rochas, Helga Traxler, Julia Neumann, Peter Sommerer, Christian Schallert, Susi & Felix Schellhorn, Klaus Mühlbauer
From our neighborhood in Vienna: OTOTO