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The Black Experience in Graphic Design: 1968 and 2020

We asked 15 design leaders to look back at Print’s report on racism in the profession. What has changed? What remains the same?

Portraits of Dorothy Akubuiro, Bill Howell, Dorothy Hayes, William Wacasey, Alex Walker

Just over fifty years ago, at the apex of the civil rights movement in the US, Dorothy Jackson interviewed five Black designers about “the frustrations and opportunities in a field where ‘flesh-colored’ means pink”. The article for Print was perhaps the first in the mainstream trade press to directly address the impacts of racism in the profession and describe the experience of Black practitioners in their own words. What has changed since then? What remains the same? We asked today’s design leaders to compare their experience to the 1968 discussion and imagine what’s next.

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Letterforms / Humanforms

The interaction between letters and bodies is a recurring theme in art and design history. Our newest team member, sair goetz, shares what they’ve discovered in the Archive’s collection and beyond.

Stefan G. Bucher, Letterheads: An Eccentric Alphabet, The Unnamed Press, Los Angeles, 2018.
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From the Collection: Tadanori Yokoo

Our growing collection of posters by the avant-garde Japanese designer are portals to universes never before imagined.

Portraits of Yokoo included in his posters.

Post-war Japan was a catalyzing backdrop that shaped a generation of artists and designers, including the renowned Tadanori Yokoo (横尾 忠則). Over the span of two decades, the Emperor’s divinity had been absolved, the nation was demilitarized, and US military troops had occupied cities. In 1960, at the age of 24, Yokoo traveled 300 miles from Kobe to Tokyo, to the epicenter of this cultural whirlwind. Tokyo, now home to a rapidly increasing population of over 10 million, was preparing to host the 1964 Summer Olympics while reckoning with violent student protests and riots. There, Yokoo’s practice took root and would earn him a reputation for bridging high and low, pre- and post-modern, and Eastern and Western cultures, and challenging conventions by charging posters with intense emotion. Trailblazing across multiple media, Yokoo responded to absurdities of signs and symbols, tensions between seemingly opposing worlds, and existential questions of the self to offer works that are humorous, chaotic, and deeply autobiographical.

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Sponsor a Shelf

Thousands of books and other design artifacts are lined up for the big Archive move. You can complete their journey.

Paul Rand bookshelf illustration as an animation with frowns turning upside down
Little 1 (detail), 1962. See the entire book, written by Ann Rand and illustrated by Paul Rand, in the Online Archive.

Like many of you, we’re working from home. That doesn’t mean, however, we aren’t still planning the move and thankful to be working with our crews to complete the buildout as safely as possible.

And, right now, your support is more important than ever.

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Honoring Scott Lindberg

The modernism enthusiast’s collection of mid-20th-century design has a new home at Letterform Archive.

Objects collected by Scott Lindberg, including designs by Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Ladislav Sutnar, Herb Lubalin, Paul Rand, and Alvin Lustig
Objects collected by Scott Lindberg, including designs by Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Ladislav Sutnar, Herb Lubalin, Paul Rand, and Alvin Lustig.

Through his extensive knowledge and keen curator’s eye, Scott Lindberg was a constant source of inspiration to the design community in the Seattle area and beyond.

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Learn more about our collection, including additions to the Online Archive, and get news of upcoming events, workshops, and publications.

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