Feature

 

Mandarin to Mao

Chris Vermaas

The modern Maoist versions of traditional Chinese characters introduced ambiguity and confusion by deleting information
 

Branding

David Peters

The Wieden & Kennedy agency provides big-name clients with the personal styles of cutting-edge graphic designers
 

The diaphanous machine

Max Bruinsma

Designers can bring clarity and consistency to Web interfaces and find new ways to organise navigation
 

Pouchee’s lost alphabets

Mike Daines

Few contempory display alphabets equal those of Louis John Pouchée for vivacity and invention
 

Meta’s tectonic man

William Owen

In Erik Spiekermann’s hands, typographic design is a tool for rendering the world more accessible
 

The aesthetics of transience

Max Bruinsma

With computers as the means for limitless manipulations of signs, designers now exalt subjectivity and impermanence
 

Pulp artefacts

Fay Sweet

When paper mills target the design business, what should they print?
 

Truth lies in the surface

Adrian Shaughnessy

You can feel it. The unimpeachable authenticity of uncoated board
 

Information imagined

Andrew Robertson

H2G2 animations anticipated the look and feel of future computers
 

Detach, detourne and consume

David Crowley

Alienation sells! The seductive flatness of Situationist aesthetics