The scarcity of resources, climate change, and the digitalization of everyday life are fuelling the economy of swapping, sharing, and lending—all of which are in some way linked to a culture of commoning. In this context, we understand commons as community-based processes that use, collectively manage, and organize generally accessible resources—referring to both goods and knowledge. Commons in Design explores the meaning and impact of commons—especially knowledge-based peer commons—a...

Gert Dumbar (1940) is one of the most influential—and colourful—graphic designers in the postwar design field, both in the Netherlands and abroad. As a young partner in Tel Design, he designed one of the most iconic symbols in the Dutch public domain, the logo for the Dutch National Railways, NS, to which he has added countless designs for other clients with his own Studio Dumbar. Applauded or reviled, Studio Dumbar has left an indelible mark on Dutch and international visual culture.

Dum...

Welke indruk zouden toekomstige archeologen krijgen van onze tijd, als ze zouden graven op de plaatsen van onze huidige beschaving? Ze zouden eindeloze stortplaatsen vinden gevuld met de dingen die we hebben weggegooid: plastic en metalen objecten, nog smeulende hopen elektronica, synthetisch textiel, en andere dingen die niet binnen afzienbare tijd afbreekbaar zijn. Ze zouden de resten vinden van een tijdperk van ongebreidelde, onvergankelijke objecten.

Vandaag de dag draait ons economische ...

Graphic Design Is (…) Not Innocent questions ingrained approaches, values and assumptions of graphic design in globalized societies. The publication aims to initiate a dialogue between designers, scholars, critics and commissioners, who investigate responsibilities, potentials, politics, limits and risks of designing visual communication. How innocent is graphic design? Whom is it addressing, whom is it in/excluding? What does it bring about? When defining the role and impact of visual comm...

Over the last few decades the term ‘bootlegging’—a practice once relegated to smugglers and copyright infringers—has become understood as a creative act. Debates about homage, appropriation, and theft that are common in the art world, are now being held in the spheres of corporate branding, social media, and the creative industry as a whole. Today, bootlegging has become fetishized as an aesthetic in and of itself, influencing everything from underground record labels to DIY T-shirts,...

Capitalism could not exist without the coins, banknotes, documents, information graphics, interfaces, branding, and advertisements made by graphic designers. Even anti-consumerist strategies such as social design and speculative design are appropriated to serve economic growth. It seems design is locked in a cycle of exploitation and extraction, furthering inequality and environmental collapse. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are ine...