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Russian Sci-Fi Before Hacking
Russian science fiction dates back to before the revolution. Yet it came of age in the latter 20th century. In the USSR during the late ’60s and ’70s, the term for science fiction was научная...
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Advertising Dutch
The advertising universe may not be as infinite as the real universe, but everywhere never before seen stars all of a sudden shine. These are full-page illustrated ads from a unnamed Dutch trade...
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Dancin’ Jamaica
Not all “vernacular” signs are created equal. Indeed, most vernacular signs by virtue of the name should be different. They are often handmade by untutored hands. Some of the best of the ad hoc ads...
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Alllllllll Aboardddddd!
Michael Russem and the staff of Kat Ran Press make small booklets that are packed with wonderfully curious design work. They’ve revived Eric Gill’s Notes on Postage Stamps, W.A. Dwiggins’ Towards a...
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A Printed Magazine About Printed Design
I have been writing on and off (mostly on) for Eye magazine since it began 92 issues ago (or around 28 years ago). Some of you weren’t even born when Rick Poynor presented his idea for a graphic design...
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Weekend Heller: Rome Last Call
There are still a couple of spots available for our ninth annual Rome Summer Typography & Design Workshop (June 11–25). It is a wonderful way to learn about the history and practice of type,...
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Tolerance is More Than Just Tolerating
Tolerance is easy to say and often hard to do. This collection of designs from the Tolerance Poster Show that recently opened in Ljubljana and Maribor, Slovenia, is an international response to the...
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The Swiss Were Good
Those Swiss were deceiving. They said they were creating a language of design simplicity based on fundamental forms, clarity and rational thought. The International Typographic Style that originated in...
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The Romance of Italian Smoke
It is no sigarette—I mean secret—that Europeans, especially Italians, love their cigarettes. The packaging has long had tremendous allure, and the advertising is not just smoke and mirrors. These are...
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Rabid Roaming Roman Rabbits
While in Rome I purchased a “lapinopedia” illustrated with the mysterious drawings, paintings and hieroglyphs of Luigi Serafini, titled Il coniglio d’oro (The Golden Rabbit). It includes the wily...
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Humor on the Right
In 1950, Il Borghese was established by the editor, designer and humorist Leopoldo Longanesi (1905–1957). He had earlier founded other controversial magazines such as L’italiano and Omnibus, and...
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Cuba’s Revolution in the Cards
In 1960, Felices, a Cuban canned food brand, printed a collectible souvenir album that encouraged customers to acquire a series of cards chronicling the seven bloody years it took Fidel Castro and his...
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Weekend Heller: Apeloig In Japan
I recently wrote an introduction for GGG Gallery’s solo exhibition of typography by the French designer Philippe Apeloig. It opens Aug. 7, and if you are in Tokyo, visit Ginza Graphic Gallery. His work...
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Universal Appeal: Beautiful New & Vintage Sci-Fi Book Covers
Science fiction. It fills countless library shelves, holds its own in Hollywood and sometimes even feels like we’re living it. (Researchers found what? They discovered what in the ocean? Elon Musk...
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Rebel Masks
Once an editorial illustrator and now a filmmaker, Carlos Llerena Aguirre has been documenting Saynatakuna, the masks and transfigurations in Paukartambo, in his native Peru. There is an eerie beauty...
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Stamping Out Civility
One of the most ambitious and exciting indie book publishers is Siglio Press (“uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature”). Director Lisa Pearson, who recently relocated from Los Angeles...
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A Lost Albanian Alphabet
Edon Muhaxheri is an Albanian artist from Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo. He has a BS in applied arts and sciences from the Rochester Institute of Technology and, having received a Fulbright...
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So Many Languages, So Many Alphabets
Last week we learned about Albanian type, and today we look at Armenian type. Mariya Stepanyan’s father, Ashot Stepanyan, was an artist and industrial designer in Yerevan, Armenia, from the early to...
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A Bit of Computer Art and Design History
From 1961–1973, five international exhibitions were organized under the title New Tendencies in Zagreb, Croatia/Yugoslavia. This brought to light new approaches to art that included the early...
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The World Through Magazines
Patrick Roessler, a German design scholar, wrote Viewing Our Life and Times: American and German Magazine Design in the 20th Century: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Media Globalization in 2006 for an...
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