The 333th edition of idea, the legendary Japanese magazine on international graphic art and typography, lent 226 pages to Emil Ruder, showcasing his work, influence, and legacy in the world of typography and beyond. Sold out soon after its publication in 2009, this comprehensive survey of the life and works of a Swiss typographic legend is now again available in its original version.
Complemented by commentaries from Michael Renner and Lars Müller, it brings together essays, discussions, and appraisals of Emil Ruder from fellow designers, typographers, and artists–engaging with the designer’s many years of work and teaching in Basel, his thirty years as publisher of the famous Typografische Monatsblätter as well as his posters, fonts, and philosophy.
Joy and Fear
A continuation of Otto Neurath’s 1939 book Modern Man in the Making, Joy and Fear questions how modernity, through its promises and failures, continues to reshape mankind. The promises have been fulfilled, especially for people in the West, where hygiene, modern medicine, and education have led to steep increases in health, life expectancy, and literacy rates. For large parts of the world’s population, however, these promises have not been fulfilled. The current average life expectancy in Chad, for example, is equal to that of the United States in the 1920s, and at 52 is eight years below the retirement age there. The entire globe is unquestioningly and irreversibly involved in the modern project, but its benefits are very unevenly distributed.
By depicting these asymmetries, Joy and Fear brings clarity to today’s modern world. The pictograms and illustrations and their accompanying texts touch on global issues ranging from agriculture to warfare to the welfare state. The visual language makes complex issues immediately accessible. Holding the various themes together is a coherent narrative.
Helvetica – Homage to a Typeface
In 1957, Swiss typographer Max Miedinger came up with Haas Grotesk. Renamed Helvetica after 1960, this typeface went on to become one of the world’s most used typefaces ever. It embodies the myth of Sachlichkeit, propagated at the time by Swiss Typography. This book sings the praises of this shift-worker and solo entertainer of typefaces, of its forgotten creator and all those who have contributed to its unparalleled international march of triumph over the past forty years.
The designs gathered together here in honour of Helvetica have been created by superb designers and anonymous amateurs from all over the world. They present a unique panoply of this icon of modern design. Superb applications are juxtaposed with an anonymous collection of ugly, ingenious, charming, and hair-raising samples of its use. Helvetica is not only the preferred typeface of leading professionals, it is also an all-time favorite among the multitude of codes and signals and commands that enliven urban life.
Helmut Schmid Typography / Helmut Schmid Typografie
Helmut Schmid was a master of his craft. The Austrian typographer put his own spin on Emil Ruder’s teachings at the Basel School of Design while remaining faithful to the principles of clarity, simplicity, and elegance. Blending eastern and western influences, Schmid honed his skills and put them into practice in the fields of editorial design, packaging of ethical drugs, and the visual identity of brands such as Pocari Sweat sports drink (Otsuka Pharmaceutical), Maquillage (Shiseido) and IPSA. He also produced publications, such as the famous journal Typographic Reflections.
Helmut Schmid Typography explores the typographer’s oeuvre in its entirety. The book’s generous design allows each image to breathe, and the accompanying texts narrate Schmid’s life and career in an informative and pleasant manner. Complementing the publications Weingart: Typography and Ruder Typography, Ruder Philosophy, this bilingual monograph completes the Basel school of typographic thought.
Cleaning
Cleanliness is a core value of societies around the globe. So much so that cleaning seems to be an inherent part of human nature and an expression of how we interact with and domesticate our environment. This book explores the concept of cleaning in its various aspects. Illustrations from various cleaning methods expand our conception of an activity that is such a big part of our daily lives. From a child sorting its toys and the meticulous work of a clockmaker to an impressive deep-clean of a ship: each process is treated with the same calm fascination while short texts add a semi-poetic dimension. The book’s handy size invites readers to take it out into the world as they look at everyday processes with fresh eyes. Flipping through the pages of Cleaning is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
Some Magazine #17—Look
For over one hundred years, we humans of the post-postmodern times have turned ourselves into outstanding visual athletes. We made visuality our superpower. Now we are about to change the rules of the game right in the middle of it. Will all this result in some new weird kind of blindness?
With contributions by Blatant Space, Catelijne van Middelkoop, David Horvitz, Eleonora Marton, Melody “LeMoon” Bossan and Rob Lowe.
This issue of Some Magazine is dedicated to the skill, the craft and the pure joy of looking!
A Magazine for Visual Inventors!
Since 2010, changing editorial teams of young design students research, write, layout, and produce 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.
Non-Structures
The series Non-Structures presents London—and cities in general—as a spectacle of constant conflict, negotiation, and flux. Capturing key moments in the life of diverse buildings, the images reveal a condition of transience, trapped as these buildings and sites are between the boundaries of architecture and ruin, planning and chance, process and product. The term “Non-Structures” alludes to anthropologist Marc Augé’s influential work Non-Places; this boundary condition, defined by an absence of identity, has lent its name to the series.
Flowers in the Dark No.1
What is real and what is fiction? We can distort and disfigure our faces using various digital filters. A self-portrait is created that can only be produced in a digital world. This image plays with the viewer with its surreal look and asks is it real or fiction?
The Flowers in the Dark No.1 print with surreal surrounding comes as a DIN A5 print on 246g/qm photo paper (C Type Fuji Gloss). The Print is sold unframed.
Slanted Magazine #42—Books
Slanted Magazine #42—Books is a magazine about books. Every day, people ponder whether the future of the (printed) book is tied to its sensual quality. How can beautiful books secure their place in the media and society? How are content, medium, and form interconnected? Is manufacturing and design quality, in addition to its functionality, simply to be understood as a marketing argument?
In this edition, Slanted Publishers delves deeper into books that are pushing boundaries, moving beyond traditional norms, and rediscovering their essence. The belief is that genuine reading encompasses more than mere skimming; it involves understanding, grasping, and engaging in creative thinking. The value placed on the tactile experience of holding a book, flipping through its pages, setting it aside, and seamlessly resuming the reading is immense. It’s an experience cherished by many, one that defines the true essence of books.
Slanted Publishers emphasizes the resurgence of book reading as a significant trend, especially for those seeking enduring experiences and embracing multi-dimensional thinking. This edition showcases books that venture off the beaten path, departing from traditional conventions, and advocates for timeless book designs where the content shapes the form.
To commemorate the magazine’s release, Slanted Publishers has introduced a limited special edition, which includes a set of pencils from Viarco, the oldest pencil factory in Portugal. Make a statement with this and become part of the BK LVRS!
”Eye candy for designers and food for readers.”
Marginalien, Zeitschrift für Buchkunst & Bibliophilie
Shortlist Die Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2024, Stiftung Buchkunst
Latent Figures
Three years after Shape Grammars (2020), Jannis Maroscheck returns with an updated look on machine-generated graphics and the core motif of mass produced ideas: Latent Figures.
Looking for forms of expression hidden between ancient runes and y2k logos, medieval monograms and clip art illustrations, hieroglyphs and stock icons, Maroscheck developed AI-based systems to merge the shared visual vocabulary designed by humans across eras, continents and cultures. The underlying process simulates human inspiration, but it is an analytical, objective process. The systems consider form as pure form. They draw no reference to real-world things. In doing so, they have a stubborn intensity to them, that seems less like human creativity and more like a strange, unstoppable force of nature.
The resulting catalog is a dive into the inner workings of an AI that has seen nothing but graphic shapes and symbols. With this sort-of-dictionary, Maroscheck creates a visual language that blends pragmatic graphic design aesthetics with elusive imagery. A collection of shapes that often approximate something we know or can understand, but their meaning doesn‘t quite want to resolve, they revolve around themselves, somewhere between meaning and nonsense. Offering a space to project ones own imagination and come across new ideas.
“When I think about it, something like a graphic form, black and white, defined only by its outline, feels quite limited in what it can express, what it can communicate. Then I look at it, like a blob of ink, continuously reshaping itself, in flux, automatic and open in all directions.” Jannis Maroscheck
Limited Special Edition Books: BK LVRS Pencils + Magazine
To celebrate the release of Slanted Magazine #42—Books, we introduce a limited special edition exclusively available in the Slanted Shop or with Subscriptions with special edition. This Special Edition includes Slanted Magazine #42—Books and a pair of custom-made pencils from Viarco, the oldest pencil factory in Portugal.
Pencils—We’re BK Lvrs!
Only because of the boundless will of José Vieira, owner of the oldest pencil factory Portugal’s, places like Viarco are still alive. They manufactured these wonderful pencils for the special edition and with this share their approach and heritage with the Slanted readers worldwide. Get an insight look into the oldest factory of Portugal here.
Flowers in the Dark No.2
What is real and what is fiction? We can distort and disfigure our faces using various digital filters. A self-portrait is created that can only be produced in a digital world. This image plays with the viewer with its surreal look and asks is it real or fiction?
The Flowers in the Dark No.2 Print with surreal surrounding comes as a DIN A5 print on 246g/qm photo paper (C Type Fuji Gloss).
Blue Notes, No.1—Isaiah Lopaz “Fluent in the Languages of My Selves”
In his essay, the writer and artist Isaiah Lopaz tells of recovered memories, yearning desires and the bitter and painful disappointment that his place of refuge, Europe, became. His text powerfully bears witness to how, despite racism and exclusion, he finds himself in his diverse and polyphonic identities, where he develops his own poetic language and power. The text is accompanied by thirteen collages from the Anthology/Appendix series, which explores themes of diaspora, desire, isolation and belonging.
Fluent in the Languages of my Selves is the first in the blue notes series. blue notes publishes intersectional voices and invites us to explore marginalized experiences and perspectives in short literary and visual formats. Like the blue notes, they create resistant dissonances.
Grafikmagazin 05.23—Creative Printing
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 Creative Printing. 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.
Yearbook of Lettering #1
Letters and typefaces not only transport information but also create a feeling and have a personality. Lettering takes this a step further—with its movement, artistic strokes, and variety, it has the potential to radiate a whole range of energies and tell stories of harmony and distortion, about positive and negative space. Words become drawings and pictures themselves.
Born out of the success of the concept of the Yearbook of Type, we have created a new book series: the Yearbook of Lettering. It presents a selection of lettering artwork created all over the world—from traditional calligraphy and hand lettering, street art and graffiti, to 3D digital lettering, showcasing the vibrant and wide range of different styles and techniques.
The book offers an overview of high-quality handcrafted typographic art and can help clients source the right artist for a project. It serves as a source of inspiration not only for people in the design world but also displays the contemporary world of lettering and the many different styles available—giving lettering, calligraphy, brush lettering, blackletter, hand lettering, graffiti artists, and more the platform, appreciation, and recognition they deserve.
Lettering art from all over the world!
“A multifaceted presentation of the world of lettering.”
Grafikmagazin
FFCGN—Die Macht der Bilder Vol. 3
The world is made up of a thousand colors, and no sound is like another. It’s noisy! We have finally accepted the dissonances because we are not all cut from the same cloth. Yet, we live under the same sun together. This year’s key visual, created by Holger Risse, takes into account a complex spirit of the times: it poses the tricky question of what still connects us despite all our differences.
There is a need for spaces for encounters. Only through encounters does the diverse “beauty of being human in our society” (Jovanovic) come to shine. Let’s let it shine together with FFCGN – die Macht der Bilder Vol. 3!
Here you’ll learn all about the power of images in film, pop culture, art and society—in this book, at FILM FESTIVAL COLOGNE from October 19th to 26th, 2023, and always on the net. Once more, this publication gathers and selects a diverse range of content from the realm of motion pictures. This book is a showcase. The editors engage in conversations with individuals who inspire them. It offers a glimpse into their work, both at FILM FESTIVAL COLOGNE and in broader contexts. It presents a selection of the top-notch content they endorse.
UNLICENSED—Bootlegging As a Creative Practice
Over the last few decades the term “bootlegging”—a practice once relegated to smugglers and copyright infringers—has become understood as a creative act. Debates about homage, appropriation, and theft that are common in the art world, are now being held in the spheres of corporate branding, social media, and the creative industry as a whole. Today, bootlegging has become fetishized as an aesthetic in and of itself, influencing everything from underground record labels to DIY T-shirts, publishing ideologies, to acts of high fashion détournement.
UNLICENSED contains twenty-one interviews with a range of creative practitioners on the topic of bootlegging. The conversations in UNLICENSED investigate bootlegging’s creative and critical potential, and explore new ways bootlegging can be deployed in order to thrive as an impactful cultural force.
Interviews with: A March Issue (Line Arngaard & Sonia Oet), Babak Radboy, Clara Balaguer & Czar Kristoff, BLESS (Desiree Heiss & Ines Kaag), Boot Boyz Biz, Akinola Davies Jr, Eric Doeringer, Experimental Jetset (Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers, Danny van den Dungen), Elisa van Joolen, Hassan Kurbanbaev, Urs Lehni & Olivier Lebrun, Jonathan Monk, Matt Olson, Online Ceramics (Elijah Funk & Alix Ross), Mark Owen, Printed Matter (Jordan Nassar & Christopher Schulz), Nat Pyper, Hassan Rahim, Shanzhai Lyric, SHIRT, Oana Stanescu.
Valiz with Source Type. Ben Schwartz (1988) is a graphic designer and editor based in New York. He collaborates with several graphic design studios in the cultural sector across a variety of media.
DAG – extrafein
The works from DAGs catalogue extrafein are characterized by the analog, drawing-based approach on old paper taken from a 1960s paper factory’s pattern book. He integrates writing-like, geometric, repetitive drawing elements into the pre-printed lines on the paper samples. Using technical aids, he creates an atmosphere reminiscent of mapping or music scores, creating unique artworks with autobiographical references.
Astrid Busch – World in Minds
The publication by Astrid Busch World in Minds is an artistic approach to the ports of Hamburg, Antwerp in Belgium, Le Havre in France, and Istanbul in Turkey. The history and present of the four ports, as well as the frequency of the ships arriving and departing, are the basis of the project’s content and complement each other in their interaction. What does a port mean for a city and how has the development of the ports proceeded. Ships used to sail directly into cities, the harbour was part of the city. Nowadays, access to the port is strictly controlled and only open to authorized personnel. Past, present, and future of the four ports and the tanker traffic are brought together creating stories about the ports, other worlds, ideas, and exchange. The images she brings back from her travels are incorporated into a process of ongoing metamorphosis, resulting in new kinds of transition and expansion. In combination with the documentary images of the harbo, they act like “strange counter images” that stimulate associative thinking.
The art historian Wolfgang Ullrich writes about the project: „By offering images to her audience that do not immediately reveal what they depict or how they came into being, thereby giving rise to speculation, she seeks to awaken curiosity. And when she brings together images of different character in the same space, hanging or projecting them partially over one another, she encourages active associating and thinking ahead. She even entices viewers to come up with their own interpretations of the presented image processes. Those who do not have the opportunity to travel to unknown or hard-to-reach places should not be satisfied with just a few images from there but should be given the promise that something new can always emerge anywhere. The title World in Minds makes it abundantly clear: There is so much to discover when one looks inward as well as outward and relies on one’s own imagination.“
Astrid Busch’s works encompass installations, photographs, paper works, objects, and moving images. Her works are often based on architectural designs or places that she investigates for their sensual perceptibility and their impact on the human being. Her motifs refer to found and self-created images that are transformed and altered in dimensions and then translated onto various image carriers in the space under complex lighting conditions. Astrid Busch studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, where she graduated as a master student of Prof. Katharina Grosse. She lives in Berlin and Düsseldorf.
Her works have been shown in national and international exhibitions. Astrid Busch has received numerous scholarships and awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York City, USA (2021), a cultural exchange stipend for Istanbul of the federal state of Berlin (2021), a cultural exchange stipend for Brasilia of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin (2020), a project scholarship from the Kunststiftung NRW (2019), scholarships from the Association Fort! In Le Havre, France (2018) and the Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Foundation (2017), a work scholarship from the Stiftung Kunstfonds, Bonn (2016), a residency scholarship from Kunstdepot Göschenen, Switzerland (2020), from Museum Kunst der Westküste, Föhr, Germany (2021), and from La Forme Lieu d‘exposition Art Contemporain Architecture in Le Havre, France (2016), and a scholarship from the Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Bad Ems (2013).
Stefan Sagmeister: Heute ist besser
The world is better than it thinks.
Just because bad news attracts more attention doesn’t mean the world is getting worse. In his latest project, international creative star Stefan Sagmeister explores the question of whether everything really was better in the past …
He researches facts about the state of the world in the past and today—numbers that encourage!—and transforms them into meaningful infographics. He buys oil paintings from supposedly better times and turns them into “data carriers” for his diagrams with a scalpel and skilled craftsmanship. This is how good news becomes works of art.
Stefan Sagmeister has mastered the art of vizualising the good in the world. Make room for the beautiful and the good! In your thoughts. And on your bookshelf: this book can be a first step!
DDR CI
For 40 years there were two German states. They shared a terrible past. One launched the first and only attempt to build a socialist society in Germany. Next door, the economic miracle started.
The renowned design researcher Andreas Koop (“NSCI”) analyzes the stylistic means of the GDR’s visual identity and reconstructs, as it were, the manual of the workers’ and farmers’ state: from the coat of arms to the national colors, typefaces/typography, and print media, to architecture and public staging. The focus is on graphic design and the representation of power.
Koop works free of Ostalgie and personal judgement—full of respect for the victims of the Stasi and for those who courageously took to the streets on Mondays. An approach to the GDR through its self-portrayal!
Content Strategy Workbook
Use the Content Strategy Workbook and Content Canvas to create a content system that attracts the right people to your website, engages them to take action, and inspires them to come back for more.
What’s included?
Content Strategy Workbook
The Workbook provides a guided process, structure, and hands-on activities to help you and your team develop a content strategy that makes sense for your or your client’s brand. Activities go from defining target personas and performing a content audit to publishing, promoting, analyzing, and optimizing content for conversion and SEO.
Content Canvas
The Content Canvas will enable you to uncover and centralize all the core components of your content system and will serve you as a roadmap for success.
Self-Reflection Cards
Use this set of 35 self-reflection cards to revisit your life, current priorities, modes of expression, skills, and values. Crystallize your next steps in life.
Brand Strategy Workbook
The Brand Strategy Workbook and the Brand Canvas will take you through a structured inside-out branding process, helping you to crystallize your brand’s core: your whys, authentic points, proof points, next level of success, target clients, positioning statement, and brand personality.
What’s included?
✦ Brand Strategy Workbook
This workbook will take you through a structured inside-out branding process, helping you to crystallize your brand’s core: your whys, authentic points, proof points, next-level of success, target clients, positioning statement, and brand personality.
✦ Brand Canvas (A2 template)
By the end of the process, you’ll have created a Brand Canvas that clearly lays out your vision right in front of you. You’ll experience that “aha” moment! This will provide the foundation, clarity, and a new dose of inspiration to turn your ideas into a proper brand.