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Cover of LSD #01 – A Feminist Issue

Le Singe Design

LSD #01 – A Feminist Issue

Jean-Michel Géridan ed.

€12.00

The first issue of the Cahiers du centre national du graphisme, around the relationship between graphic design and feminism.

Speaking about Chaumont and its festival, Vanna Pinter once wrote rather modestly, “The graphic design faith has remained in dependable legitimate hands, the hands that ensure the transfer of power.” To act outside of those transfers of power, from a co-opting of use, is to run the risk of a possible delegitimization. Acting on the fringe, adopting another vantage point, is therefore not without its risks—in terms of territorial thinking—but must be an absolute in a global context.

At the second iteration of the International Graphic Design Biennial in 2019, we tackled a number of themes, from invisiblization with Silvia Baum, Claudia Scheer and Lea Sievertsen [Not a Muse], and the postcolonial question with Jonathan Castro, to transformations of capital and the repercussion on the economy of a discipline with Tereza Ruller [The Rodina], and the notion of commitment with Teresa Sdralevich. In that context we found many more allies than fans of a “Bingo du Male Tears.”

Opening this first issue of our periodical and titling it “A Feminist Issue” around the figure of Anja Kaiser is about approaching graphic design from a feminist, collaborative and co-constructionist perspective. It is a perspective that a number of others have joined here, including Anna Jehle, Juliane Schickedanz, Fabrice Bourlez, and Loraine Furter. The title of this issue implies another, such as “An other Feminist Issue” coming after “Another Feminist Issue,” for there are many voices and they require us to lend them an ear while being attentive and precise. Le Signe Design [LSD], designed by officeabc, is the periodical of a platform for production, distribution, creative support, dialogue, and mediation between the artistic field of graphic design and the public, what the National Center for Graphic Design is all about. Le Signe Design is not so much a communications forum as a new way to enter a field of study. 

Texts by Anja Kaiser, Loraine Furter, Fabrice Bourlez, Anna Jehle, Juliane Schickedanz.

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Cover of Every Day is A New Day: Calendar 2023

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König

Every Day is A New Day: Calendar 2023

Karel Martens

Dutch graphic designer Karel Martens (born 1939) has been an influential figure in the visual culture of the Netherlands for many decades. Alongside his commissioned projects, Martens has maintained a commitment to this personal and iterative way of printing, which shows how creative practice often spans perceived disciplinary boundaries.

For each day of this elegant 2023 calendar, Martens has created a unique abstracted form to serve as a number—originally constructed using his signature method of printing letterpress monoprints from found metal forms, which are then digitized to comprise 365 compositions in total. The piece’s reference to the daily practice of art expresses Martens’ own approach as a designer and educator: “every day is a new day.”

Cover of Visualisation. L'interprétation modélisante

Éditions B42

Visualisation. L'interprétation modélisante

Johanna Drucker

Les diagrammes, cartes et visualisations de données ont conquis le domaine de la recherche en arts, lettres et sciences humaines. Pour certains chercheurs, ces formes graphiques consistent à exploiter des données quantitatives jusqu’ici délaissées, pour d’autres, elles offrent la possibilité d’explorer les relations discrètes qu’entretiennent des corpus hétérogènes. Mais sur quels fondements épistémologiques reposent ces opérations techniques et intellectuelles ? Dans le cadre de la production du savoir et de son interprétation en régime numérique, est-il possible de dépasser le simple effet d’affichage des données, certes bluffant au premier abord, et d’envisager autrement les interfaces et les logiciels ?

Considérée aujourd’hui comme l’une des plus importantes théoriciennes des humanités numériques, Johanna Drucker livre dans cet ouvrage, spécialement rédigé pour la collection, une alternative aux formes dominantes de la visualisation de l’information. Héritière de la tradition humaniste, elle propose une approche qui réhabilite l’idée d’un sujet situé et incarné qui expérimente et conceptualise les connaissances par le prisme de la représentation graphique.

Cover of Fanzine Grrrls

Monsa

Fanzine Grrrls

Gemma Villegas

Making a fanzine is an act of rebellion, even more so if it is published and produced by a woman. The grrrls of today use them to inspire countless young people around the world, to take control of their lives and to create their own culture. These homemade publications are a quick and cheap way to spread their ideas and dismantle the usual stereotypes. Traditionally hand-drawn, photocopied, and stapled together, the format of fanzines are now as diverse as their subject matter, with online platforms and social networks fast becoming the norm. The fanzine is more alive than ever!

Gemma Villegas runs her graphic design studio based from Barcelona. She works in close dialog with commissioners and collaborators on a broad range of projects, including visual identities, exhibitions, publications, and digital platforms, overseeing the creative process during all the phases of a project. Her work is characterized by a fresh and powerful visual language focused on detail with special attention to typography.

Cover of Beginnings

Ex. Coda

Beginnings

Oliver Boulton, Manon Michèle

Fiction €15.00

What do we start with when telling a story — What tensions activate it — What does it promise — What do we want from it — How do we deliver it — Must it have an end — What about a story which never began — Stories we wish were told — Stories which have always been there — Stories we don’t know how to start.

Beginnings is a collective attempt at questioning protocols and forms of narration, initiated by Manon Michèle. The publication gathers textual and visual works from twenty-nine artists, writers and collectives. With two covers, ninety-six pages, and no end, the publication remains in flux, with no definitive conclusions but the shape of an ongoing question: Where do we start and where might the act of arriving lead.

There’s bodies thrusted through motion, accelerations, collapses, into the folly of life, death, borders and language. There’s following intuition, rabbits, leaders, and the shape of clouds, switching from script to script to escape latched circles and compliance. There’s braiding together clashing dimensions and vital landmarks, processing ghosts to reclaim space, feeding them to trusted spirits. There’s foreseeing new shapes, and believing in what grows. There’s the poetry of saving what can be saved and the pull of letting go. There’s so much to begin with

Contributors
Alice dos Reis, Anaïs Fontanges, Anna Bierler, Auriane Preud’homme, Bravas Graphix, Calli Uzza Layton, Clara Pasteau, Cleo Tsw, D-E-A-L, Elina Birkehag, Eliott Déchamboux, Emilie Pitoiset, Heleen Mineur, Hyo Young Chu, Josefina Anjou, Juliette Lepineau, Kimberley Cosmilla, Manon Michèle, Maria Paris, Marie-Mam Sai Bellier, Mathis Perron, Mia Trabalon, Pablo Bardinet, Pays de Glossolalie, Philip Ullman, Raphaël Massart, Sanae Oujjit, Silvana Mc Nulty, Yunie Chae

Beginnings was edited and designed by Manon Michèle and Oliver Boulton, and published by Ex. Coda, 2025.

Cover of A New Program for Graphic Design

Inventory Press

A New Program for Graphic Design

David Reinfurt

A New Program for Graphic Design is the first communication-design textbook expressly of and for the 21st century. Three courses—Typography, Gestalt and Interface—provide the foundation of this book.

Through a series of in-depth historical case studies (from Benjamin Franklin to the Macintosh computer) and assignments that progressively build in complexity, A New Program for Graphic Design serves as a practical guide both for designers and for undergraduate students coming from a range of other disciplines.

Synthesizing the pragmatic with the experimental, and drawing on the work of Max Bill, Beatrice Warde, Muriel Cooper and Stewart Brand (among many others), it builds upon mid-to-late 20th-century pedagogical models to convey contemporary design principles in an understandable form for students of all levels—treating graphic design as a liberal art that informs the dissemination of knowledge across all disciplines. For those seeking to understand and shape our increasingly networked world of information, this guide to visual literacy is an indispensable tool.

David Reinfurt (born 1971), a graphic designer, writer and educator, reestablished the Typography Studio at Princeton University and introduced the study of graphic design. Previously, he held positions at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University School of Art. As a cofounder of O-R-G inc. (2000), Dexter Sinister (2006) and the Serving Library (2012), Reinfurt has been involved in several studios that have reimagined graphic design, publishing and archiving in the 21st century. He was the lead designer for the New York City MTA Metrocard vending machine interface, still in use today. His work is included in the collections of the Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. He is the co-author of Muriel Cooper (MIT Press, 2017), a book about the pioneering designer.