Category: Design History
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The Absence of Objects in Design Criticism
In the past two decades, there has been an ever-widening effort to develop forms of graphic design criticism. There are new programs, new writers, new curators, and unusual vehicles and formats. To someone like me, who studied graphic design before that, it is an unbelievable profusion. A sign of that abundance is that most of…
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Arts & Crafts and the Non-human
I’m increasingly interested in non-human-centered design, and one of the places to find its traces may be in pre-modern design. In part, that is why I’m going back to the Arts & Crafts movement, and in particular to the writings of Walter Crane. He was an illustrator and a painter who worked closely with William…
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Arts & Crafts and the Paris Commune
I’m going through Walter Crane’s autobiography. Crane was a painter and illustrator, one of the central figures of the Arts & Crafts movement. Crane’s memoirs are full of fascinating insights. For instance, he crosses paths with several famous exiles from the Paris Commune, such as Louise Michel. A remarkable passage describes the events of the…
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A Brief Formalist History of Formalism in Design
A Brief Formalist History of Formalism in Design I started my studies in design by the time the first private TV channels began broadcasting in Portugal. Because of this, I got an overdose of designers bad-mouthing the logo of the new SIC TV channel, created in 1992 by Brazilian designer Hans Donner. If you happened to…
Unseen by Design 