Why design needs magick
UX and Design Thinking are leaving designers neutered and constrained, says Graham Wood. Through the applied combination of imagination and craft, it’s time to put the magick back
The power of brand: the fintech challenge
As fintech is maturing entrepreneurs and legacy institutions will have to take a brand-led approach to user experience, says Territory Projects’ Lee Fasciani
Designer Matthew Young on turning the Penguin Monarchs series paperback
Penguin’s popular Monarchs series is now available in paperback, featuring colour-coded covers and a clever graphic family tree system. We talk to designer Matthew Young about the process behind their creation
Beyond: Rebranding funeral care
London agency SomeOne has created a surprisingly cheerful identity for funeral comparison service Beyond – one that avoids clichés and sympathy in favour of a bold colour palette and a friendly mascot
The CR podcast episode 12: Can creativity save the British high street?
For this podcast, Fortnum & Mason’s Customer Experience Director Zia Zareem-Slade and Yard Creative co-founder Steve James-Royle join Eliza Williams to look at the problem’s facing Britain’s high streets and whether design and creativity can help
Jack’s: an austerity brand for Brexit Britain
With the launch of Jack’s, its cut-price competitor to Aldi and Lidl, Tesco has created a nostalgia-fuelled ‘Britain-first’ supermarket. James Greenfield believes it’s a misstep by a brand once renowned for innovation
In partnership with In-House Design Awards
How in-house creative teams benefit from winning awards
Emma Sexton, founder of the In-House Design Awards, explains why winning awards can be just as valuable for in-house teams as agencies – so long as the categories reflect their different priorities
Europe’s literary classics get a tube seat-style makeover
Unlike the studio’s London Underground fabric designs, Wallace Sewell’s collaboration with Vintage Classics is for reading rather than sitting on
As, Not For exhibition celebrates black graphic designers
The show, held at Baltimore’s Maryland Institute College of Art, brings together work by African-American designers of the last 100 years – everything from Snoop Dogg album sleeves to Malcolm X movie posters
Notes from a smart-phone free life
In this month’s column, our correspondent Daniel Benneworth-Gray finds himself suddenly smart-phone free. He expects being unshackled from the device to bring freedom, but finds he is unexpectedly bereft
Pentagram dazzles LDF visitors with war poem inspired installation
Created by Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa, Dazzle is a nod to the camouflage pattern used on Allied ships during the First World War – but with a suitably disorientating, typographic twist
London’s Bankside celebrates its “otherness” with new flag designs
The flags, created by local designers and artists including Alan Kitching, Morag Myerscough and NB Studio, will hang above Borough Market throughout this year’s London Design Festival
Berlin: The graphic novel that took 20 years to complete
Jason Lutes has spent the past two decades working on Berlin – an epic, 600-page graphic novel that follows the lives of Berlin residents in the years leading up to World War Two. We talk to Lutes about the process and the changing perceptions of the comic as an art form
Massive Attack reveals anniversary edition of Mezzanine
The remastered album is packaged in a heat sensitive box and comes with exclusive artwork by Robert Del Naja and Nick Knight
Design Manchester unveils full line-up
Morag Myerscough, Anthony Burrill, Kate Dawkins, DesignStudio’s Ben Wright, Patrick Thomas, Helen Storey and Michael Wolff will all feature in the city-wide festival in October
V&A Dundee looks to put “fire in the belly” of the city
As the first ever V&A museum outside of London prepares to open its doors, we speak to the institution’s Director Philip Long about what it can do for Dundonians as well as the wider design community