character#04 is the fourth specimag by Character Type. This blend of type magazine and a typeface specimen introduces Character Type’s newest typefaces Early Sans and Late Serif. character#04 features “The Alphabetical Room” an exploration into the boundaries and limits of writing within a 3D grid by Liad Shadmi.
The magazine is printed with three spot colors on rough natural paper.
In 1960, Brasília was celebrated as the realization of an urban planning vision based on designs by Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. At the same time, the sectoral city of Chandigarh was materializing according to plans by Le Corbusier. The “test tube city” emerged out of modern Western planning euphoria, marked by utopian ambition, and was exported across the globe. In both cities, foreign architecture commingled with indigenous culture, forming new and independent identities.
Brasilia – Chandigarh explores how modernism has been appropriated in both cities, and how their inhabitants deal with its legacy in their everyday lives. Commonalities and differences are identified through images by the photographer Iwan Baan, taking stock of contemporary life in both cities.
Eine Art zu leben (A Way of Life) is an invitation to rediscover the material world with fresh eyes, inspired by the humble surroundings of Ballenberg.
Ballenberg is an open-air museum in the Bernese Oberland in the Swiss Alps, which brings together farmhouses from across the country, spanning the 14th to 19th centuries. This book, edited by the entrepreneur and long-time driving force behind Vitra, Rolf Fehlbaum, is the result of a trip undertaken to Ballenberg by designers Jasper Morrison and architects David Saik, Tsuyoshi Tane and Federica Zanco.
The authors share a fascination with the simplicity, practicality and functional beauty of the world in which rural populations lived. Eine Art zu leben compiles their observations and discoveries, revealing how architecture, furnishings and tools were always committed in their design and execution to the needs and necessities of everyday life; genuine solutions were found with the available means. Contemplating this intrinsic relationship between design, form and function, the book serves as a gentle reminder to resist the fads of today’s consumer world.
German edition
A Way of Life is an invitation to rediscover the material world with fresh eyes, inspired by the humble surroundings of Ballenberg.
Ballenberg is an open-air museum in the Bernese Oberland in the Swiss Alps, which brings together farmhouses from across the country, spanning the 14th to 19th centuries. This book, edited by the entrepreneur and long-time driving force behind Vitra, Rolf Fehlbaum, is the result of a trip undertaken to Ballenberg by designers Jasper Morrison and architects David Saik, Tsuyoshi Tane and Federica Zanco.
The authors share a fascination with the simplicity, practicality and functional beauty of the world in which rural populations lived. A Way of Life compiles their observations and discoveries, revealing how architecture, furnishings and tools were always committed in their design and execution to the needs and necessities of everyday life; genuine solutions were found with the available means. Contemplating this intrinsic relationship between design, form and function, the book serves as a gentle reminder to resist the fads of today’s consumer world.
English edition
Bodies are classified by category and incorporated into narratives that are invariably oriented toward a supposed norm, one that, in turn, can mostly be understood as a system of belonging or exclusion. Non-binary, queer, ill, disabled, old and Black bodies are strikingly underrepresented and only come into view when their depiction is motivated by the message. As much as generalizing is essential to quick communication, it is also dangerous. Power relations and norms with respect to gendered, racialized and nonnormative bodies are continually upheld, adding legitimacy to their marginalization and discrimination.
Talking Bodies examines different mechanisms of representation of the body in media cultures—from stereotypical forms of gender representation to the persistence of the regime of the white gaze and to self-staging on social media—and situates them in a cultural, historical and sociological context. This publication brings together international posters from a wide range of categories and reveals continuities as well as changes and deviations in the depiction of the human body. Unsettling and even provocative poster compositions provide food for thought and inspire the discovery of new visual dialogues. Talking Bodies strives to promote a critical reappraisal of media images of the body.
A bold project for change unfolded in Latin America at the beginning of the 1970s. After an electoral victory in Chile, the socialist government led by Salvador Allende and his governing coalition, Unidad Popular, embarked on a mission to bring about a socialist revolution through existing democratic institutions to address the most pressing needs of the Chilean people. The result was an unprecedented alliance of socialism, democracy and design.
How to Design a Revolution. The Chilean Road to Design provides the most complete analysis of the graphic and industrial design projects developed during Salvador Allende’s presidency. The book’s twelve chapters tell some of the most remarkable histories of this innovative design experience, including histories of the powdered milk measuring spoons designed to combat child malnutrition, the posters that encouraged collective action and a state-of-the-art operations room built to manage Chile’s state-run industries. Through these and other projects we see how Chile’s designers worked to create a path to social and material justice.
Fifty years after the civil-military coup d’état that put an end to democracy in Chile, and with it these design initiatives, the book provides a reminder of Latin America’s transformative capacity and a source for reflection and creative inspiration.
Otto Neurath’s famous Modern Man in the Making, first published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1939, captures and describes the state of the world in the 1930s by using text and figurative illustrations. From 1925 onwards, Neurath and his team had worked on a new visual language termed “Isotype”. At a time that saw the rise of new mass media making hitherto unthinkable amounts of information available, Neurath felt the need for a systematic visualization explaining facts, statistic data and comparative numbers in simple ways. The book can be seen as one of the most influential predecessors of today’s ever-present infographics. Its topics include diverse social issues of the time such as mortality, health, employment, trade, education, mobility, migration and demographics.
Modern Man in the Making shows Neurath’s democratic endeavor to make knowledge intelligible and available to all. This pivotal historical picture-text book is made available again as a reprint of the original publication in the series XX The Century of Print.
The very first page promises: it’s all about the whole. Drawings.
If you look at the simple geometric shapes drawn with colored pencils one by one, you might think you recognize certain objects. Despite their direct language, however, they do not pretend to represent anything in particular. They exhibit their pure construction. Yet the mysterious order of this exciting construction kit seems unchanging. The beauty of Prekop’s drawings, like their rhythm, is only get in one piece.
Chicago-based musician/artist Sam Prekop is a founding member of The Sea and Cake and has released several solo albums. This book collects 27 of his drawings from autumn 2023, printed in original size.
This psychological, almost therapeutic artist-photobook reveals lesser-known connections between creatively inclined individuals in working-class societies, addiction problems, and mental illness. Tino Zimmermann, a member of the milieu he photographs, makes his case through images from his personal archive. These photographs emerged when he accidentally discovered photography as a means of self-therapy after discharging himself from a psychiatric clinic during a drug-induced schizophrenic episode.
The book offers an intricately composed, chronological narrative of six years, presenting the argument that a lack of societal acceptance for young, creatively inclined individuals leads to a range of well-known, potentially preventable problems and hardships. Another point of focus is the topic of depression—the most prevalent and debilitating mental condition in many developed countries, which despite its epidemic status remains heavily stigmatized and insufficiently discussed.
Solely designed by the artist himself, this is a book for photo and artist-book enthusiasts. According to Zimmermann, it is a work not only to raise awareness and to help de-stigmatize common patterns, but ultimately a work that will resonate the most with other neurodivergent people, who are probably going to find these tellings relatable. 2019, an early prototype edition of Developments was awarded the German Photobook Award.
Imagine if we could see all the logos ever designed in the world and they became part of our collective memory. Where have all those preliminary studies, rejected designs and millions of files gone? Are they hidden away in huge data centres somewhere on the planet, never to see the light of day again? Could they give us a different perspective on the history of graphic design? Either way, it would make us even more humble. Imagine if there were no more grey compromises? Or if those universally hated pitches were banned? Undoubtedly, there are masses of sketches where graphic designers have done their best work. Perhaps it is this search that makes a graphic designer a ‘real’ graphic designer. We delved into one studio’s well-preserved digital archive, spanning 30 years, and discovered a wealth of logos by designers searching for new solutions and developing an eclectic geometric interplay of letters and shapes.
This book presents nearly a thousand logo designs by the Brussels-based studio visionandfactory and its founder, Hugo Puttaert.
If there is one aspiration within contemporary culture that pushes the boundaries of what is understandable, it would be not wanting to be creative. What was once left to subcultural circles of artists has become a universally valid cultural model, an imperative even. Andreas Reckwitz examines how a dispositive of creativity was able to emerge throughout the 20th century and the role of design as a paradigmatic “creative industry”.
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.
Emojis are an integral part of digital everyday life worldwide. But what is behind these small pictograms? Where do they come from? Who came up with the joyful sequence “:-)”? And how do emojis change our communication? Are they democratic? Are they diverse? And do they really work globally?
The graphic novel Face with Tears of Joy invites readers to see the world of emojis and other pictograms in our writing with new eyes. Author Karla-Jean v. Wissel uses history, linguistics, and emotion research to approach emojis in an entertaining way. Throughout the book, Karla-Jean is accompanied by various emoji characters and meets important figures in emoji history, such as developers and scientists, who contribute to the exploration of a seemingly simple yet complex element of our everyday communication.
X/100 — Expect Nothing — Appreciate Everything
The motto of this year’s 100 Beste Plakate is enticing and delivers on its promise: Every year, the association 100 Beste Plakate e. V. honors the most outstanding and creative poster designs from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The accompanying yearbook has long established itself as the standard reference for creators in the graphic and design scene and is now being published for the first time by Slanted Publishers.
The 2023 yearbook presents all 100 winning posters from the 100 Beste Plakate 23 competition in large-format images, along with information on their content aspects and the context in which they were created. It discusses current poster design and highlights trends. The jury’s introduction by Toan Vu-Huu, alongside a foreword by Fons Hickmann, an essay by Helene Roolf, presentation of the jury, and a contact register with credits of all designers, clients, and printers, completes the publication.
The book’s theme, “X out of 100 / Expect Nothing—Appreciate Everything,” ensures equal presentation of all 100 works, avoiding any impression of ranking. Each poster/series is treated equally, marked as one of the 100 nominated by the jury.
Parallel to the exhibition “extra stone next surface” by Claude Horstmann at the Laura Mars Gallery, Berlin, the publication AIRE is being released, in which the artist focuses on photographic images of the materiality and minerality of urban, cultural and natural spaces.
The photographs bring together diverse material about stone that she has taken in various places over several years. The focus is on the depiction of material phenomena, sculptural gestures and states as well as sculptural architecture.
The selection also includes drawings and language from urban contexts. A specific terrain is always physical, scientific-physical, but also mental and imaginary. The focus is on form and non-form, on substance and surface, on energetic trace.
I dreamt of zombies on a mountainside, devoid of arms. I dreamt that Gina gouges out her eyes and that my child is named Nymphe Dora. That’s what I remember. I do not remember what happened on the other side of the mountain and which creatures live in the shadow of the fir trees. Who is Gina? And I don’t remember any birth.
Since we started watching Game of Thrones, cruel dreams whip through my consciousness. Everywhere there is fire raging, and cold smoke blurs the view. Delicate yet fierce lines intertwine these fragments of imagery, piercing through scattered memories and filling the crevices in between. Dogs, dolphins, and genitals serve as filling material. Tiled corridors, pavilions, and bare trees gather into thirsty gardens and construction sites.
Blue ballpoint pen, tool of the fleeting, the banal, and the carefree, nurtures and strokes the new lawns and staircases. Tentacles wind around walls like ivy. Glancing along cool surfaces, you cannot trust your own eyes. Nevertheless – since my dream shreds are no longer homeless, I finally sleep on my back again.
Since I draw the backside of the mountains and the shaded life under the fir trees, the nocturnal images trot amiably through the days. They no longer bare their teeth, and my eyes are no longer black-rimmed like those of the giant panda.
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 “Brand Design”. 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. This particular cover was realized in six different versions from different studios and artists, each riso-printed. 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.
Being free – that has always been your dream and now you want to take the step into self-employment? Then here is your personal coach in book form.
You finally want to be your own boss. You have enough ideas and experience and perhaps even your first customers. You want space for what you love – and that has never been law, business and taxes. But you also don’t want to get into financial or organizational difficulties at some point.
Nicolas Uphaus guides you to the start and through a final check phase before you take the leap into self-employment. He then guides you through the actual start-up and the mountain of documents you need. Then it can start, the day-to-day organization. This is where you lay the foundations for easily manageable organization. If you create good structures here, you will later have time for what you actually want to do: which is to create.
Some Magazine #18—Studio Practice delves into the concept of the artist’s studio throughout history. From its origins as a legendary and fabled place in the early Renaissance to its transformation into a dynamic and adaptable space in the digital age, the artist’s studio has undergone significant changes over time.
This issue examines how artists’ practices have shifted alongside with technological advancement and artistic trends. The magazine examines the concept of “studio practice” and describes how artists organize their creative processes from inspiration to presentation. This issue invites readers to explore the multifaceted nature of creative work and the diverse approaches creative practitioners pursue in shaping their artistic practice.
Since 2010, changing editorial teams of young design students research, write, and layout the bi-annual Some Magazine. It is a part of the experimental design course of Prof. Sven Völker at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
A Magazine for Visual Inventors
Towards Home / ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui, an Indigenous-led publication, explores how Inuit, Sámi, and other communities across the Arctic are creating self-determined spaces. It is informed by the perspectives of a group of Inuit, Sámi, and settler co-editors who share the ambition to promote northern Indigenous forms of sovereignty shaped by an understanding of the land as home. The project emphasizes caring for and living on the land as a way of being, and celebrates practices of spacemaking and placemaking that empower Indigenous communities. It contains essays, artworks, photographs, personal narratives, and other forms that express Indigenous notions of home, land, future, kinship, design, and memory. ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ (angirramut) in Inuktitut, or “ruovttu guvlui” in Sámi, can be translated as “towards home”. To move towards home is to reflect on where northern Indigenous people find home, on what their connections to their land means, and on what these relationships could look like into the future.
The publication is framed by these three concepts: Home, Land, and Future. It contains essays, artworks, photographs, personal narratives, and other forms that express Indigenous notions of home, land, kinship, design, and memory. The publication ultimately asks: What could home become across Inuit Nunangat, Sápmi, and the North more generally when defined by Indigenous architects and designers? Where do homelands begin?
This publication was conceived in parallel to research, workshops, and an exhibition at the CCA, Montréal.
English, Inuktitut, North Sámi edition
Vers chez soi / ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui, an Indigenous-led publication, explores how Inuit, Sámi, and other communities across the Arctic are creating self-determined spaces. It is informed by the perspectives of a group of Inuit, Sámi, and settler co-editors who share the ambition to promote northern Indigenous forms of sovereignty shaped by an understanding of the land as home. The project emphasizes caring for and living on the land as a way of being, and celebrates practices of spacemaking and placemaking that empower Indigenous communities. It contains essays, artworks, photographs, personal narratives, and other forms that express Indigenous notions of home, land, future, kinship, design, and memory. ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ (angirramut) in Inuktitut, or “ruovttu guvlui” in Sámi, can be translated as towards home’. To move “towards home” is to reflect on where northern Indigenous people find home, on what their connections to their land means, and on what these relationships could look like into the future.
The publication is framed by these three concepts: Home, Land, and Future. It contains essays, artworks, photographs, personal narratives, and other forms that express Indigenous notions of home, land, kinship, design, and memory. The publication ultimately asks: What could home become across Inuit Nunangat, Sápmi, and the North more generally when defined by Indigenous architects and designers? Where do homelands begin?
This publication was conceived in parallel to research, workshops, and an exhibition at the CCA, Montréal.
French, Inuktitut, North Sámi edition
A PASSION THING is a magazine focused on people from around the world who are driven by this wonderful force we call passion.
For this 10th anniversary issue, we talked to Magazine Makers, Cultural Directors and took a deep dive into Japan. We curated must-visits in Paris, talked to a professional basketball player and wrote about how to build a little food empire.
Featuring: Carla Rumler, Teja Oblak, Rika and Junichi Tatsukawa, Tyler Brûlé, Robert Thiemann, Mathilde Roseanne Brégeon, Robert Punkenhofer, Simone and Adi Raihmann.
For the cover story we pay a visit to LUNA LUNA the world’s first art amusement park that got a revival in L.A.
A PASSION THING is a magazine focused on people from around the world who are driven by this wonderful force we call passion.
This issue is a celebration of Austria, as most of the interviewees come from our beautiful home country. We also dive into the beauty of Mexico, the idea of slow jobs, as well as living a creative career in art & design.
Featuring: Marie Kreutzer, Ting Wang, Alice Stori Liechtenstein, Peter Fetz, Susanne Kaufmann, David Wurawa, Ana Holschneider and Ariadna García, Benjamin Hofer, Marco Dessí.
From our neighborhood in Vienna: Alexandra Palla, Nicole Adler, and Alexander Ehrmann.
A PASSION THING is a magazine focused on people from around the world who are driven by this wonderful force we call passion.
The first female power issue featuring seven amazing women also takes us to Portugal, Beirut, and London.
Featuring: Saskia Diez, Rana Salam, Stephanie Dettmann, Ju Schnee, Georgia Brooks, Anna von Hellberg & Laura Castien.
How does a German village get to Kyrgyzstan?
Before the autumn of 1988, Irina Unruh, who was nine years old, left Kyrgyzstan, which was then part of the Soviet Union, with her family. Two decades later, she returned to Telman, her home village, which lies in the valley of the Chui River and is called Grünfeld by the older residents.
Her documentary photographs tell stories of loss, origins, and the search for identity. Through the history of Russian Germans, Unruh tells her personal story of escape, displacement, and home. Unruh’s photographic journey reveals the secrets that have been hidden for generations, the memories that are loudly remembered, and those that are only a whisper.
Her photographs capture vast landscapes, intimate family moments, and friendly interactions.