Wim Crouwel

Jan van Toorn

Dingenus van de Vrie

For graphic design aficionados, few philosophical clashes rival the one that Jan van Toorn and Wim Crouwel engaged in 1972. On the occasion of an exhibition of posters about the Vietnam War, they set out their respective precepts in a debate at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam- Crouwel defended his approach of neutrality and austere rationalism, and van Toorn argued that the designer's ideas and personality should be as present in the work as the content to be designed. The lines were drawn between objectivity and subjectivity in design; the stakes were aesthetic, ethical, even political. This debate has reverberated through graphic design practice across the decades. It is often referred to in modern design criticism as a key marker for the current profusion of design styles. But a translation of the proceedings have never been available to an English-speaking audience-until now. Along with the transcript, The Debatecontains a foreword by eminent graphic design critic Rick Poynor, a historical essay by Frederike Huygen, and a color gallery of works by Crouwel and van Toorn, positioned side-by-side, that demonstrates how their ideological differences translate to their graphic work.

The Legendary Contest of Two Giants of Graphic Design

The Debate

This book presents a number of experimental projects in communication design as a symbolic and public practice. It proceeds from a critical position vis-à-vis the customary mediation of information--a position more necessary than ever, now that design operates so prominently in the entertaining and marketing spectacle organized by the neo-liberal world order as an instrument for the colonization of human existence. Unlike the classic form of visual communication, the dialogic approach is a connective model of visual rhetoric with a polemic nature and polyphonic visual form--a storytelling structure that seeks to reveal the opposing elements of the message and opts for active interpretation by the spectator.

Design's Delight

Jorge Frascara

Dietmar Winkler

Bernd Meurer

This text presents the important contribution that visual communication design can make to society, beyond its usual commercial applications. It identifies successful socially orientated projects, demonstrating the human and economic benefits that can be achieved through good communication design. The book also discusses a user-centred approach to Design, Including Notions Of Social Marketing, Design Methods And different information-gathering techniques.; The book closes with a discussion of a new professional profile for the graphic designer which reflects the complex cultural, psychological and often political issues that in turn affect, construct and contextualize our daily communications.

Jan van Toorn

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