Opinion:
Editorial Eye 34 – Editorial, John L. Walters
Though we have designated this edition a ‘Public realm special issue’, it could be argued…
The univernacular rules – Screen, Jessica Helfand
Contradiction and comformity
Growing up in public – Agenda, David Heathcote
To tackle bigger projects and take more responsibility, graphic designers will have to get together and…
Anti-advertising shows its teeth – Rick Poynor
The media became squeamish when confronted with a gory anti-burger ad. Who are they trying to protect? Critique by Rick Poynor
Features:
A design (to sign roads by) by Phil Baines
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: Jean Widmer by Ursula Held
‘Signage reflects both the complexity of space and the way a place is organised. And it is very satisfying’
A virtual city in a global square by John Warwicker
Reflections on a new project in Australia, where graphic elements provide the interface between the electronic world and the physical environment
Virtual city: sidebar 1 by John Warwicker
The cultural palace
Virtual city: sidebar 2 by John Warwicker
A postmodern state?
Virtual city: sidebar 3 by John Warwicker, Eye editors
Global language
Big book, little buildings by David Heathcote
In its first edition, this seminal book was a groundbreaking collision between architecture and graphic design, emphasising ‘image’ over ‘form’
Here, there and nowhere by Emily King
Pictures of non-places, the grubby and eroded gaps between the real spaces of the urban realm, make a spectacle of the unspectacular
Neon by Russell Holmes
The properties of this medium make it the plaything of artists, a cinematic cliche and a familiar, endlessly renewable element of the urban nightscape.
Tart art by Tom Phillips
Despite regular attempts to suppress this unique ‘folkart’, London’s public phone booths remain eclectic galleries of erotic vernacular.
Out of town shopping by David Heathcote
Though its public lettering reassures customers with poetry and fiction this shimmering mall is, at heart, a three dimensional shopping catalogue
Surface wreckage by Rick Poynor
Three books showing accidental collages of torn posters an other random marks revive interest in a style of image-making drawn from the city streets