Rick Poynor

Rick Poynor|Essays

Funerary Portraits: Snapshots in Stone

The portrait sculptures in the Cimetière du château in Nice resuscitate their subjects with a frequently startling vividness.

Rick Poynor|Essays

From the Archive: Raging Bull

A response to Michael Bierut’s essay about the relationship between bullshit and design, and the discussion that ensued.

Rick Poynor|Essays

From the Archive: Down with Innovation

Designers have too readily accepted the caricature of themselves as airheaded stylists. Visual form is a vital expression of culture.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Andrzej Klimowski: Transmitting the Image

Andrzej Klimowski, author of a new book, On Illustration, has used the medium to create a compelling alternative reality.

Rick Poynor|Essays

J.G. Ballard’s Terminal Documents

A speculative visual interpretation of one of the surreal image lists in J.G. Ballard’s experimental novel The Atrocity Exhibition.

Rick Poynor|Essays

The House That Design Journalism Built

Printed design magazines continue to fail and close. Where does that leave design writing and criticism?

Rick Poynor|Essays

The Dictionary as Art Concept

A new Magritte exhibition catalogue is not the first to take the form of a dictionary. How important is originality when it comes to book design?

Rick Poynor|Essays

Speculative Fiction, Speculative Design

The cover of England Swings SF is one of those prescient imaginative leaps that vaulted so far it disappeared from the historical record.

Rick Poynor|Essays

On the Threshold of Sebald’s Room

Daniel Blaufuks is haunted by a picture of an office in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz. Where did it come from and what does it show?

Rick Poynor|Essays

Lost Inside the Collector’s Cabinet

The Collector’s Cabinet at the Frederic Marès Museum in Barcelona is a mind-bending, sense-bedazzling palace of artifactual wonders.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?

A DVD cover for the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly uses the blindingly obvious symbol that just keeps on giving.

Rick Poynor|Essays

On My Shelf: Stefan Lorant’s Lilliput

Stefan Lorant’s use of photos in pairs could be wry, funny, bizarre, whimsical, satirical and not always kind.