Adrian Shaughnessy
Showing 49 – 60 of 64 results

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
The 2012 Olympic Logo Ate My Hamster
Designers often bemoan the lack of coverage given to graphic design in mainstream media. Yet when design catches the attention of journalists and commentators it usually results in a vicious mugging rather than hearty praise.

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Are JPEGs the New Album Covers?
Black to Comm "Levitation/Astoria." 7" Lathe-Cut Picture Disc, design by Marc Richter and Renate Nikolaus. Dekorder Records.Over the past few months I've been researching a book about current record cover art. Besides hunting down examples …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
"I Sold My Soul And I Love It"
Creative Review cover, February 2007.The current issue of Creative Review is "guest edited" by hip British advertising agency Mother. As is the way with "guest editors," Mother hasn't actually edited the magazine; instead, they've …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Pet Shop Boys A Flawless Vision
Suburbia, 12" sleeve, 1986. Photography by Eric Watson,design by Mark Farrow at 3 and PSB.You might balk at the prospect of listening to twenty years worth of Pet Shop Boys music — although their brittle, Anglicized, melancholic pop …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Listomania
Spin, spread from 50 Reading Lists, 2006Lists appeal to the fetishistic instincts found in many graphic designers. Hardly surprising since the typographic rendering of a list is one of the first skills the young designer learns: or …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Graphic Design vs. Illustration
Someone emailed me recently to point out that illustration isn't included in Design Observer's list of "categories" — the list you can see below, on the right of your screen. Art, typography and photography are there, but not …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Living Without The Internet
I've just done what tens of thousands of Brits do every summer: I've spent the past two weeks holidaying in rural France. This annual British invasion of our near neighbour is, ostensibly, a search for good weather, unspoilt countryside …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Werner Herzog and the Deeper Truth
Compared to the newer technological advances that enable us to experience, and participate in, art and culture (television on cell phones, MP3 players, blogging websites), the DVD format appears almost antique. The first DVD players …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
We're All Stellar Designers, Now
In her book The Substance of Style, author Virginia Postrel notes that "Worldwide, at least fifty graphic design magazines publish regularly." Postrel wrote this in 2003; it seems likely that the number will have risen since then. There's …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Google and the Tyranny of Good Design
The Google logo — that scrap of oddball typography — is perhaps the most famous piece of graphic design in the world today. Milton Glaser's "I 'Heart' New York" may have a prior claim, and the Coca-Cola script, the Nike tick …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Robert Brownjohn and The Big Idea
Left: Robert Brownjohn. Right: Liberace. There's an essay on Liberace by art critic Dave Hickey that's so full of vivid insight that it persuaded me, on a recent trip to the US, to visit the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. Amongst other …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays
Charles Dickens and The BBC
Who would have guessed that a BBC costume drama would provide us with Exhibit-A in the defense’s case — that a mass audience can be engaged without pandering to base instincts?