Nearly 3 years ago, when staring out of the window of a staff room at the University of Suffolk and watching Suffolk Archives’ new headquarters, The Hold, be built right next door to us, my colleague Rob Ramsden and I ruminated on what the archive of W.S. Cowell Ltd might have in it. That thisContinue reading “Picture books for all: the journey of an exhibition”
Category Archives: Research
Graphic commons: End of year dérive
Date: 29.12.2020Distance: 5 milesSteps: 10,812Start: 13:34Ground covered: Residential to industrial area to dockside, return via town centre side-streets and residential areas As the end of the year looms I felt it was appropriate to head out into Tier 4 territory for one last dérive of 2020. Fearing a Tier 5 being implemented, given the dramaticContinue reading “Graphic commons: End of year dérive”
Graphic commons: an unexpected drift
Date: 10.12.2020Distance: 2.4 milesSteps: 5271Start: 07:37Ground covered: Residential area to dockside, return via university campus What started as simple exercise, to try to stave off a bad back from sitting at a desk for far too many hours, turned into a drift; the first one proper since my Lockdown 1.0 Constitutionals side project back inContinue reading “Graphic commons: an unexpected drift”
Virtually speaking
I recently wrote an article for Eye magazine’s blog about the wealth of online talks and interviews that have sprung up as a result of Covid-19 and lockdown. These have been a godsend to my students, and I’m sure a great many more. I go on to write about my hope that such initiatives continueContinue reading “Virtually speaking”
Graphic commons: Government sanctioned dérives
Making the most of the ‘sanctioned’ time I am allowed out to exercise during the UK government’s coronavirus pandemic ‘lockdown’, I have been drifting through my neighbourhood on a daily basis for the last week. Despite the awkwardness of swapping sides of the road every time I see someone coming in my direction, this hasContinue reading “Graphic commons: Government sanctioned dérives”
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”
Aesthetics of convenience
In the first of a series of publications that investigate different aspects of the graphic commons, Aesthetics of Convenience explores the vinyl window displays of convenience stores. Through a photographic and textual discussion of how these ‘little and often’ shop window displays affect human behaviour and environmental ambiences, the paper seeks to encourage a discussion aboutContinue reading “Aesthetics of convenience”
Graphic commons: Tunnel and peripheral vision
Distance: 3.7 miles Steps: 8113 Start: 06:25 Ground covered: Feeder roads into and out of Ipswich town centre; pedestrianised shopping precincts; town centre. It has been a while since I last did a dedicated graphic commons walk; 2017 in fact. More recent graphic commons posts have mainly been about walks taken as part of otherContinue reading “Graphic commons: Tunnel and peripheral vision”
Proposing the Graphic Commons
This text was first published as a pamphlet of the same name in August 2017. It is republished here for the first time online. Copies of the original pamphlet, as a numbered limited edition of 300, are still available on request. Please get in contact if you would like a copy. This essay introduces theContinue reading “Proposing the Graphic Commons”
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”
Nigel Ball 