Design Journeys through Complex Systems combines systemic design, leading thinking practices, and years of the combined authors’ experiences into a practitioner’s handbook for design thinking. By drawing upon the authors’ Systemic Design Toolkit, this book provides detailed knowledge of systems science, expanding upon essential systemic design texts in order to demonstrate the power of visual sensemaking.

No matter if you’re a design professional or have never come across design syste...

“Relation of Elements” explores the role of prepositions in architecture and design, a part of speech often overlooked when describing and designing architecture. The book demonstrates how language can shape our understanding of objects and spaces and allows you to discover new ways to shape and define space.

The book aims to inspire architects and designers to think creatively by manipulating prepositions and exploring the connections between different composition and structure elements....

This book takes a deep dive into visual design structures, focusing on the timeless principles of movement, space, and composition. While design tools and technologies continue to change, these core principles remain just as important. Written in a clear and engaging style, it’s perfect for students looking to build their foundation in design, and also a great resource for professionals who want to revisit or sharpen their skills.

The book goes beyond the basics of design, introducing fresh...

'Time to Play' is Underware’s exploration of the dynamic relationship between typography, language, and human interaction. With their trademark experimental approach, Underware challenges readers to rethink the role of type beyond conventional boundaries. At the heart of the book is the typeface Kermit - originally developed for children and widely accessible as part of Microsoft Office - making it one of the first writable fonts available to a mass audience. Despite its playful appearance,...

This publication emerges from the 2023 London Design Biennale. It involves an international working group facilitated by Delany Boutkan and Setareh Noorani, both researchers at the Nieuwe Instituut, which confronted the intricate and often uncomfortable dynamics of collaboration. Through public sessions and intimate dialogues in London and Rotterdam, the realities of collaboration and collectivity were examined. Two transcripts from the public events are reworked in this publication, along wi...

The Failed Painter is a personal book about material anxiety in Graphic design's creative work. It speaks of fascination for singular and multiple production processes, perfectibility, and imperfectability in times of virtual surface and hunger for authenticity. Writing out of the persona ‘The Failed Painter’, this book is a collection of essays on design and art spanning culture, race, nation, and sheer vandalism from the author of The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Art...

Candles is a photographic essay by Tim Onderbeke. Fascinated by the sacred, ritual, and cerebral act of lighting a candle, the artist began collecting images of candles and candlesticks in an artistic or art-historical context. In Candles, Onderbeke uses his own work and that of others to research what he calls “the colour of darkness,” or negative space – a concept he borrowed from the Japanese writer and essayist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Tanizaki describes this intense experience he ha...

Capitalism could not exist without the coins, banknotes, documents, information graphics, interfaces, branding, and advertisements made by graphic designers. Even anti-consumerist strategies such as social design and speculative design are appropriated to serve economic growth. It seems design is locked in a cycle of exploitation and extraction, furthering inequality and environmental collapse. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are ine...

Now in full-color throughout, the second edition of Packaging Design offers fully up-to-date coverage of the entire packaging design process, including the business of packaging design, design principles, the creative process, and pre-production and production issues. New chapters cover topics related to branding, business strategies, social responsibility, and sustainability. All new case studies and examples illustrate every phase of the process, making this the single most important guide ...