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 “Design for SMEs.” 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.
The creation of a logo, one of the most important elements of corporate branding, is a demanding design task. The idea that a good logo is by definition a persuasive logo suggests a direct link to the principles of rhetoric, which, according to Aristotle, has the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject. It follows that rhetorical concepts and methods are ideally suited for understanding the effectiveness of logos and expanding the horizons of applied design work.
After an overview of the history of logos and how corporate design has evolved since its inception, Eduard Helmann illustrates in Rhetoric of Logos. A Primer for Visual Language how designers can utilize the tools of rhetoric. Stylistic devices play a central role in this as logos are analyzed and classified to determine which communicative strategies and intended effects they fulfill. The theoretical insights gained from this process provide designers with a wealth of knowledge that facilitates analysis, ideas generation, and argumentation along with a deeper understanding of the design process.
The use of italic letters for accentuation has become a common practice in the digital age. Italics convey movement and dynamics, address the emotional experience of reading and remind readers of handwriting. Their lively nature – once the result of handwritten movements – becomes noticeably lost once words are tilted at the click of a mouse.
To spread more knowledge about this typographic feature and arrive at a general definition of the script style, Hendrik Weber has compiled stylistic examples presenting the tangible forms, characteristics and functions of the ‘italic nature’. Furthermore, he deals intensively with the historical development of italics from handwriting to digital typesetting.
The monograph Italic. What gives Typography its emphasis is the first detailed treatise on the topic. It is for everyone passionate about letters.
Snow offers an intimate photographic exploration of Kars, a Turkish city steeped in centuries of complex history. Once the capital of Armenian kingdoms and later a strategic frontier for Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans, Kars embodies the cultural and political entanglements of empires. A pivotal moment came with the Russian takeover during the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War. Following repeated sieges, Russia annexed Kars and established the Kars Oblast under a military-native government, reshaping its demographics and governance.
This project reflects on the layered past of Kars—from colonial transformations and ethnic migrations to shared human experiences—challenging Orientalist narratives by revealing universal connections. The book features several texts that intertwine images with the intricate social context. Dr. Kübra Zeynep Sarıaslan also examined Snow by Orhan Pamuk from an anthropological perspective and contributed an essay to the book.
The ingenious fusion of minimalism, precision and functionality: Design products from Switzerland are renowned, desired and admired worldwide.
Swiss Design. Icons Made in Switzerland presents timeless classics as well as contemporary design creations that continue the success story of Swiss design. The author highlights the special features of the selected products from over 120 years, tells the story of their development and portrays the respective designers and brands. In chronological order, pictures and texts reveal the sources of this special, fascinating global success.
Can there be a more monumental and exciting challenge in the design sector than the creation of an identity for the Olympic Games? Each host city requires its very own and unique image in which national identity and international trends are merged with the Olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play.
Olympic Games – The Design presents for the first time a chronological overview of the visual identity of all Olympic Games. In addition to information about the respective Olympic Games and their designers, the author Markus Osterwalder has compiled around 6,000 images that give a comprehensive overview of the design identities of all Olympic Games such as emblems, mascots, sports and signage pictograms, typefaces, medals, uniforms, admission tickets, posters and, of course, the Look of the Games.
Support Independent Type II is s the highly anticipated follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 book Support Independent Type. The second edition continues to celebrate the vibrant culture of independent type specimens and their influence on design and typography. It serves as both a manifesto and a visual showcase, featuring over 300 cutting edge type foundries—all offering a promising alternative to corporate font distributors. With this large number of type foundries, the book showcases a diverse range of fonts—from experimental designs to bold, groundbreaking fonts that push the boundaries of the traditional.
The book goes further into the world of type specimens—revealing new trends, showcasing innovative designs, and presenting the book itself as a visual art object. Through this carefully curated collection, the authors emphasize how independent type design reflects cultural shifts and sparks creative innovation.
– A curated collection of type specimens, spanning digital formats, printed works, and tactile type objects
– Insight into new trends and groundbreaking innovations in typography
– A bold exploration of how independent type foundries challenge corporate font distributors and reflect broader cultural shifts
Support Independent Type II is a deep dive into the passion and craft of independent type design and an essential resource for graphic designers, creative directors, or anyone obsessed with type!
“The Must-Have Book Celebrating Today’s Freshest Fonts.”
We And The Color
“A very beautifully designed brochure.”
Rudolf Paulus Gorbach
tgm blog
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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
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.
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