Café Royal Books is a one-man print archive of culture, community, and social change based in Southport, UK. This impressive image-based publisher shares the best of documentary photography in weekly releases that cater to those interested in subcultures, British and Irish post-war history and more. We asked founder Craig Atkinson to share his story and recommend some of his favorite...
Open Manifesto—the Quiet but Persistent Australian Design Journal—Was Ahead of Its Time
You probably don’t need me to tell you that the publishing world is a tough business. While the internet — and social networks — have put the tools of publishing into the hands of anyone with a smartphone, they’ve also made questions of gaming algorithms, virality, and likes and shares integral to building an audience. This is, perhaps, especially true...
More Than Just a “Sexy Specimen,” Good Girl 2.0 Still Isn’t Afraid to Take Up Space
Name: Good Girl Designer: Marion Bisserier Foundry: Type Department Release Date: July 2022 Back Story: We don’t often run ‘sequels’ of Type Tuesday, but we had to make an exception for Good Girl by designer Marion Bisserier thanks to its significant updates, and also the fact that we love it so much. We first covered Good Girl back in 2019,...
Louise Sandhaus Uplifts the Stories of Graphic Design’s Unsung Makers
Designers aren’t created in a vacuum. They’re shaped by their environments and the people around them, and it’s through mentorship and collaboration that they grow within their creative communities. For Louise Sandhaus, her role as a design educator and mentor reaches back nearly twenty-five years. She’s inspired countless young designers through her courses at CalArts, while also serving as co-director...
A Software Engineer’s Advice for Saving Social Media Keep It Small
This story is part of our Weekend Reads series, where we highlight a story we love from the archives. It was originally published on January 2, 2020. There’s a common refrain on Twitter that can be heard echoing across the feed any time there’s a big news day or fresh political horror. It varies slightly in wording and context, but...
How Magazine Covers Became the Political Posters of Our Times — Four Leading Art Directors Discuss
When you work at a print publication, it’s easy to get fatigued by years of conversations about the death of print — from industry observers, “futurists,” nervous colleagues, your friends and family. But nearly 30 years after David Carson’s The End of Print, a glance at the internet today would reveal an intriguing reality: magazine covers are wholly ubiquitous. And...
Emily Oberman Shaped the Look of Pop Culture as We Know It
It was only 50 cents. But it was 50 cents that perhaps changed the look of pop culture as we know it today. Emily Oberman was born in Yonkers, NY in 1962 to a designer father and an artist mother. Marvin and Arline Simon Oberman mandated their daughter take tap-dancing lessons, ballet lessons, jazz lessons… and drawing lessons. To the...
From Blue Note to Afrofuturism, Herbie Hancock’s Sleeve Designs Are as Adventurous as His Sounds
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock has been at the cutting edge of technology for many of his 82 years. Like his contemporary Stevie Wonder, he developed a taste for synthesizers and electronics long before they were widespread, and he has fearlessly explored new genres like hip hop, funk, and electronica since leaving the Miles Davis Quintet in 1968 to go solo. Born...
Design Trends Come and Go. But There’s A Reason Why Graphic Knitwear Transcends
From the family-knit cardigans of infancy, to the House of Sunny ‘fits of today’s Tik Tokers du’jour, society’s enduring love of knitwear transcends generations. But while the ways we choose to style our knits are ever-evolving, the design of knitted garments themselves hasn’t changed nearly as much as one might think. Take “ugly sweaters” from the 1970s, photographs from the...
Meet Ange Degheest, Pioneering 20th-Century Female Type Designer
“Ange Degheest’s story is remarkable and a perfect illustration of the technical odyssey that took place throughout the twentieth century.” —From Reviving Ange Degheest, 2022 Who was type designer Ange Degheest (1928–2009)? Why have design historians ignored her long and illustrious career until now? Her lack of recognition, it turns out, stems from a very good reason: she is imaginary,...
“An Unconventional Scrawl” of a Font, Designed to Look as If It Were Drawn With Feet
Name: Pardon 4×4 Designer: Martin Aleith Foundry: PFA Typefaces Release Date: April 2022 Back Story: Berlin-based digital type foundry PFA Typefaces started life in 2020 as a way for type designer Martin Aleith — cofounder of design collective Pfadfinderei – to distribute his own typefaces. That same year he was commissioned to create the visual identity for Berlin club Revier...
How the Occult Shaped Branding’s Obsession With Color
In 1928, The Saturday Evening Post, then the US’s most popular illustrated weekly, heralded “The New Age of Color.” The US had caught a kaleidoscopic fever: pink-clad architecture, brilliant nitrocellulose lacquers, Sherwin-Williams paints promoting seasonal wall colors, Lincoln motor cars sparkling in shades of Nile-blue — even cutlery served in an overpowering hue. With the country suffering after WWI and...