Eye no. 10
Volume 3, Number 10, Summer 1993
Rick Poynor [Editor]
London: Wordsearch Ltd., Volume 3, Number 10, Summer 1993. Quarto. Letterpress scored photo illustrated wrappers. 88 pp. Articles and advertisements printed on multiple paper stocks. Essays illustrated with full color examples throughout, with design and typography of the highest order. Cover artwork: Roman Cieslewicz. Light wear overall, but a nearly fine copy.
9.25 x 11.75-inch quarterly Design journal with 88 pages of fully illustrated content. “Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture.”
Contents:
- Opinion, Visual culture, Agenda, Monitor
- Editorial: Rick Poynor
- Letter to the editor: Shedding paradigms: Katherine McCoy
- Letter to the editors: Teal Triggs, Jeffery Keedy, Gerard Unger, Miles Newlyn, Art Chantry
- Are you sure you need that new logo? Brand madness, Information design: Ken Garland. “Graphic designers fill the world with a Babel of signs. Is it time we took them away again?”
- The client says he wants it in green: Rick Poynor
- Features
- Reputations: Alexander Liberman: Susan Morris. “I think the term “art director” is the greatest misnomer. There’s no art in magazines unless you are reproducing works of art.”
- Nova. “Under the art direction of Harri Peccinotti and David Hillman, Nova redefined the woman’s magazine.”
- Born modern: Steven Heller “Painting is dead, long live the dustjacket. Alvin Lustig brought modern art into American bookshops.”Twelve pages and 30 color reproductions.
- Books in freefall: Marco Livingstone. “Shinro Ohtake is a master of the artist’s book. His latest is a collaboration with Vaughan Oliver.” and Tokyo Salamander: Rick Poynor. “Vaughan Oliver’s collaboration with Shinro Ohtake is an oblique diary of dreams.” Ten pages and 19 color images.
- Propaganda for the pocket: Robin Richmond, Tim Fendley. “Czech matchbox labels form a miniature gallery of Czechoslovakian society under communism.”Six pages and 60 color reroductions.
- Way out west: Ethan Edwards. “The work of recent Cranbrook graduate Martin Venezky indicates new directions at the accademy.”Four pages and 8 color images.
- The idea is the machine: Abbott Miller. “Style is addictive, While structure comes from within, generating form from the inside out.”Eight pages and 15 images.
- Letters in the city: Robin Kinross. “Eye reassesses the legacy of Edward Wright: designer, teacher, artist and “culture-carrier.”Eight pages and 19 images of Wright’s typography.
- In search of the perfect binding: Liz Farrelly. “The craft of covers.”
- Reviews
- Design, Form and Chaos [Paul Rand] by Michael Beirut; Borrowed design: Use and Abuse of Historical Form
Includes work by Herbert Bayer, Jacques Derrida, Barbara Bloom, Avital Ronnell, Richard Eckersley, Tibor Kalman, Marlene McCarthy, Paul Rand, and many others.
Alvin Lustig penned the following essay on the opportunities presented by designing for New Directions: “The opportunity to design this series of book jackets was an unusual one. Rarely is the graphic designer given the chance to act upon what he considers his highest level upon a problem of serious intentions.
“In this case both factors were happily combined. The publisher, though of modest proportions, who has never swerved from an early established integrity, wanted to make as attractive as possible, an inexpensive reprint series representing the best of modern writing. There was no need to "design down" as there had been no "writing down" in the books selected. Still it was necessary to attract and hold the roving eye of the potential buyer. To do this, a series of symbols that could quickly summarize the spirit of each book, were established. The personal and subjective concept of each book was taken and the attempt was made to objectify and project it in visual form. Sometimes the symbols are quite obvious and taken from the subject itself. Others are more evasive and attempt to characterize the emotional content of the book. The jackets were always planned for maximum visual effectiveness when displayed together, as well as when shown singly against the confused background of the average bookstore.
“As the publishers remarks testify, the primary aim of reaching the audience was achieved. I hope too that the secondary aim, that of projecting a series of "public" symbols of higher than usual standards, was also achieved.”