I am pleased to be able to add links to pdfs of two of my previously out-of-print publications to this website. My first foray into publishing took the form of a self-published photobook and essay titled McJunk in 2011. This documented an eight year obsession of photographing McDonald’s litter when ever I came across it.Continue reading “New old content”
Category Archives: Books
ACDHE review—The graphic design process
I recently wrote a review of the 2019 Bloomsbury title: The Graphic Design Process: How to be Successful in Design School by Anitra Nottingham and Jeremy Stout, for the journal Art, Communication & Design in Higher Education. The book explores the design process through varying approaches to graphic design education—from brief to crit to exploratoryContinue reading “ACDHE review—The graphic design process”
The Fundamentals of Graphic Design
It was an honour to have my revision of The Fundamentals of Graphic Design published by Bloomsbury recently. It was a daunting job to take on, given how good the original edition by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris was. Early on I decided I didn’t want to radically alter vast amounts of what they hadContinue reading “The Fundamentals of Graphic Design”
Common affairs
The state of design criticism, it could be argued, has never been in better shape. There are the big guns, such as Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand’s printed compilation of fifteen years of online discourse at the Design Observer with Culture Is Not Always Popular. Likewise, AIGA’s Eye On Design magazine which covers topics interrogated on aContinue reading “Common affairs”
A (very) graphic memoir
I’ve just finished reading Paul Sahre’s autobiography: Two-Dimensional Man: A Graphic Memoir, and it is one of the most untypical graphic design related books I have ever read. ‘Untypical’ because for much of the book Sahre writes about his personal and private life; and graphic design ‘related’ because, at times, his profession seems incidental to theContinue reading “A (very) graphic memoir”
With apologies, (there’s nothing new)
“There’s nothing new in this world…” is a phrase attributed to Harry S Truman on the Brainyquote.com website. In this post-truth world, who knows whether this was actually said by him or not. I do, however, know the content of the phrase itself to be true, post-truth or not. In June last year I madeContinue reading “With apologies, (there’s nothing new)”
Officer scribble
When you work with someone on a regular basis you tend to get to know them well. You tell each other stories, you share aspects of your life and you get to know their working nuances intimately. But just recently I’ve been spending time with my work colleague, friend and ex-tutor Russell Walker a lot moreContinue reading “Officer scribble”
They who have no name
I’ve written here and elsewhere before about how graphic design is overlooked in favour of other arts disciplines. I’ve come to expect this, so when Will Gompertz—the BBC’s Arts Correspondent—recorded a piece for the Six O’Clock News this week about the Design of the Year Awards at The Design Museum, I wasn’t surprised that the graphicContinue reading “They who have no name”
Signal:03
It seems somewhat ironic that a journal called Signal should pass me by as it did with issue 1 and 2, (see previous post). But now that Signal:03 sits in my hands, I’m once again genuinely impressed with this publication is its breadth.
Punk philosophy
You could argue the need for yet another publication about punk. The ‘1976 and all that’ narrative has been told so often now that it reads like a dull pantomime with all original relevance of the story bled dry through over telling. There have been some publications in the last few years that have gone beyond this nostalgic rehash,Continue reading “Punk philosophy”
Nigel Ball 