Feature: Graphic design
A design (to sign roads by)
As an exemplary rational design programme, the road signs of Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert demand careful study. Despite poor application, inconsistent additions and muddle over the past four decades, their robust, flexible system – with its humane typeface and quirky pictograms – still functions throughout the length and breadth of Britain
Reputations: Josef Müller-Brockmann
‘I would advise young people to look at everything they encounter in a critical light … Then I would urge them at all times to be self-critical.’
Theatre of dreams
Andrzej Klimowski is obsessed with eyes, faces, hands, angels and devils. He is one of Britain’s most haunting image-makers
White space black hat
Derek Birdsall harbours a secret. It has given him 30 years at the top. If it works, he says, use it again
Total design
In its all too brief life, Alexey Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine achieved perfection
Techno cubists
Champions of the layered look, Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell wed theory and technological wizardry
Quentin Fiore: Massaging the message
The man who gave form to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ designed books that were both for and ahead of their time
Max Bittrof: visual engineer
Max Bittrof was one of the leading German designers of the 1920s. Unlike many exponents of the New Typography, he was able to apply the aesthetic to a major commercial client
Video to go
Video packaging is an area of graphics both marginal and ubiquitous. Who decides how it looks?
Cult of the ugly
Designers used to stand for beauty and order. Now beauty is passé and ugliness is smart. How did we get here and is there any way out?