A Design Reckoning at MOMA Beyond Bauhaus furniture and the Charles and Ray Eames chair, how is good design defined? Is it functional? Decorative? Minimal? Techy? Be the judge at a new exhibition called The Value of Good Design opening February 10 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which is showcasing design from the 1930s to 1970s, from graphics to toys, electronics and appliances. Among the masterpieces in the exhibit, postwar design of the 1950s, which was a sign of

Fun fact: People remember 80% of what they see versus only 20% of what they read. it is so conventional to see a sentence begin with a capital letter that it is only noticed when one isn’t. Capitalization is so much a part of current English orthography that most writing applications (Word, Google Docs, and iMessages, among others), autocorrect for it by default. Yet, the use of capitals has waxed and waned across the history of the English language. In the 17th century, it w

German Modernism in interior design was given a showcase at the Section Allemande, also known as the Werkbund Exhibition, at the 20th annual Salon of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs in 1930. The show was actually a light on the Bauhaus rather than the traditional Deutscher Werkbund, with all the wares designed by Gropius and Breuer “arranged by” Herbert Bayer and Laslo Moholy Nagy and others. This issue of Die Form, the monthly magazine of the German Werkbund (influenced

By: Michael Dooley When artist, writer and animator Darwyn Cooke died on Saturday, the enormous outpouring of sorrow from the comic book media was immediate and heartfelt. The graphic design community shares a great loss as well: Cooke’s flair for cartooning was possessed of a unique, masterful dexterity and versatility. His extraordinary visual narrative skills are readily apparent in his panel compositions and page layouts, which are further enriched by his ingenious render

The 1920s were, by far, the most rip-roaring decade for graphic design. Art Deco was jazzing up the whole world. The folk in Russia turned Constructive, geometrically speaking. Western Europe dallied with the Surreal thing. And of course, Germany rocked the Bauhaus, but that’s not all it did: this country also had book jackets extremely well covered, as amply evidenced within the contents of The Book Cover in the Weimar Republic, just published. Sacco und Vanzetti. Berlin: Mo

Brander, typographer, web designer. Today’s market requires unrivaled multimedia design skills. Be prepared for anything with the Multidisciplinary Design Kit from MyDesignShop. Even if you might not know Oskar Schlemmer, if you’ve seen Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance or New Order’s True Faith—with their eccentric costumes and mechanical movements—then you’ve had a taste of this Bauhaus Master’s multimedia design aesthetic, as both music videos are contemporary takes on his famous Tr

“Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced.” Do you agree? Enter Print’s Typography & Lettering Awards today. If your list of early 20th century and modernist design heroes is confined to the usual suspects – Rand, Lustig, Sutnar, and such – you probably haven’t heard of Dorothy and Otis “Shep” Shepard. These pioneers of populist American Modernism have unjustly escaped mainstream critical recognition for well over a half-

It’s never too early to be shopping for a 2015 Calendar, and an early contender for designers (and all lovers of type) would be this typography calendar from Workman Publishing. Type history and terms are dropped extensively throughout each month, with rundowns of classic typefaces like Caslon, Matrix, Century and Bauhaus. Check out some more detailed views from inside the calendar here. Via You The Designer. #Caslon #Bauhaus #Century #typographyterms #designcalendar

Nicola Walsh and Max Faber of Nicky&Max recreated some classic Bauhaus designs using food. Via Co.Design. #Bauhaus #food #PhotographyandDesign

When I was a kid, I loved to buy postcards from places along the route of my family’s dreaded annual road trip. This was 1980s America, so most of the postcards—unless they were vintage-inspired or found at thrift stores—had no charm and reeked of boosterism. They offered little visual delight, but the ones that didn’t make it back home to friends via the U.S. Postal Service served as great bookmarks, some of which I still use to this day. Video may have killed the radio star

Modernism101, rare design books from Shreveport, Louisiana (P.O. Box 53256, Shreveport, LA 71135), wants you to benefit from their Bauhausian acquisitions. The Fall 2012 Bauhaus catalog is available as a PDF (contact molly@modernism101.com). The catalog title, 7o Souvenirs from the Road to Utopia, says it all (and the catalog says it too): The Road to Utopia is easy to find if you know how to read the signs. In the United States the road ran through Boston out to the colonial

Harvey Pekar had been collaborating with the comic book artist JT Waldman on a book project, one that charts the journey from his Zionist upbringing to his questioning of Israel’s role in the world. But Pekar died in July 2010. Still, Waldman continued to work on it, and now it’s about to be published. Peter Kuper describes Not the Israel my Parents Promised Me as “an insightful look at one of the burning topics of our time. With Pekar’s scholarship and humor and JT Waldman’s

T. Lux Feininger: Metalltanz, about 1928 - 1929. Gelatin silver print, 4 1/4 x 5 5/8 in. © estate of T. Lux Feininger. Credit: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Those wild and crazy Bauhaus boys and girls, with their improv jazz band and beach antics and clownish poses. They weren’t just dedicated students at what was probably the most influential design school in the 20th century. They were also partying hearty in 1920s Germany… before Fascism put a brutal end to this h

Bauhaus, March 26, 1929. Gelatin silver print, 7 1/16 x 5 5/8 in. Credit: Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. © Artists Rights Society, New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Hitler declared his paintings degenerate. Of course, Lyonel Feininger was actually one of the 20th century’s most important American avant-garde artists: at various times a Cubist, Expressionist, and Secessionist. He’s also well known as one of the Bauhaus’s original faculty, and was even a distinguished newspaper comic str