The scarcity of resources, climate change, and the digitalization of everyday life are fuelling the economy of swapping, sharing, and lending—all of which are in some way linked to a culture of commoning. In this context, we understand commons as community-based processes that use, collectively manage, and organize generally accessible resources—referring to both goods and knowledge. Commons in Design explores the meaning and impact of commons—especially knowledge-based peer commons—a...

An overview of the work of illustrator and designer Milton Glaser during the 1960s and 70s

Incorporating both formal details and welcoming elements, a sophisticated and balanced look tailored to a sense of home, as shown through the portfolio of Foley & Cox

An invaluable introduction for designers and creatives on how to create digital interfaces for users.

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,...

A visual biography of Aino and Alvar Aalto, who designed some of the most iconic objects of the twentieth century

Aino and Alvar Aalto together founded Artek and created some of the most celebrated objects and buildings of the twentieth century. Through letters, documents, drawings, and family photographs, Alvar and Aino’s grandson tells the stories of their life together, in Finland and abroad, drawing on many of the never-before-published letters they sent to each other and to family, fri...

Stefan Sagmeister’s newest project encourages long-term thinking and reminds us that many things in the world are improving

Initially conceived in 2020 as the world entered pandemic lockdown, Stefan Sagmeister has created a book that looks at the state of the world today, illuminating, through collected data, how far we’ve come, and encouraging us to think about where we can go from here. Statistics are vividly brought to life, as numbers are transformed into graphs, inlaid into nineteent...

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...

The anatomy of our bodies requires sitting; but do we design seats in the same way? Has our meaning of sitting been colonised by Modern design? And how is the diverse, social-cultural act of sitting itself reflected in this functional commodity? In observing and analysing social and cultural differences through chairs from eight cultures in the most populated countries, Sicilian designer Matteo Guarnaccia went on a field research to portray each country, in collaboration with selected local d...