Author: Florence Fu

The San Francisco designer reminds us about the beauty of not knowing how things will turn out.

On paper, Martin Venezky is an artist, designer, photographer, and educator. He is also a collector, and some might even consider him a sort of curator. He often plays these roles all at the same time, whether he’s working on a project or not. In both his life and in his practice, he tells stories by combining and recontextualizing images and objects found in the world to create new worlds. His process reveals a lot about his own story too — one of imperfection, surprise, and patience.

“To design a poster and do the whole thing digitally? That gets boring. You’re just sitting there hitting keys, but you kinda wanna get in and see the scale of it.”

Our holdings of packaging design recently got a significant boost with the addition of several hundred objects created by Jacob (commonly signed “Jac.”) Jongert in the 1920s and ’30s for Van Nelle, a Rotterdam-based manufacturer of coffee, tea, and tobacco. The extensive and varied collection includes labels, boxes, tins, in-store displays, posters, advertising, and other collateral, like pocket notebooks and calendars.

From ancient practice to contemporary children’s books, the endeavor to form text into image is found throughout the Archive.

The Author of Morla : Design treats us to her best-loved inspiration sources — and shares how far-ranging influences make it into her work.

The award-winning author of Morla : Design shares her secrets for choosing the right typeface for the job.

Prototyping the covers for Morla : Design.

In coordination with “Inflection Point,” a new essay on Emigre, we’re posting a digital version of the magazine’s influential eleventh issue.