'WAR WITH MYSELF' is a wide-ranging collection of essays spanning design, authenticity, Empire, decolonization, and history. Hot on the heels of his books The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Artists & Photographers and The Failed Painter (or Unchained by Material Anxiety), designer, writer and teacher Ian Lynam’s latest body of work is an urgent and impassioned examination of the contemporary condition.

Graphic Design Is (…) Not Innocent questions ingrained approaches, values and assumptions of graphic design in globalized societies. The publication aims to initiate a dialogue between designers, scholars, critics and commissioners, who investigate responsibilities, potentials, politics, limits and risks of designing visual communication. How innocent is graphic design? Whom is it addressing, whom is it in/excluding? What does it bring about? When defining the role and impact of visual comm...

Hoe verschillend ontwerpers ook zijn, basiskennis van de vijf belangrijkste thematische pijlers waarop elk product is gebouwd, is onmisbaar: materiaal, constructie, functie, betekenis en markt. Kennis van deze pijlers helpt de ontwerper bij het kritisch ontwikkelen en beoordelen van zijn product, maar ook bij het beantwoorden van vragen als de volgende: "Wat will ik maken en op welke manier?", "Wat is mijn fascinatie?", "Hoe verhoud ik mij tot de wereld, en welke plaats wil ik daarin innemen?...

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,...