This page is an ongoing working document of written notes related to my design practice and those of others. [Started March 31st, 2025] * * * My work as a graphic designer departs from a wider interest in language and communication. I'm interested in thinking about designing as a form of translation. And in the multiple points in which language (in a wider sense) is made visual, and public. “No community without communication”. “The space between two languages is a space like no other” writes poet and translator Anne Carson. What happens in this contingent “in between” is what sustains my interest in graphic design as both a craft and a form of expression. The way in which the close readings and discussions that informs the process of designing/editing, becomes a mode of being present – of paying attention – in a society inflated by visual information. Talking with a friend about the parts of our craft that we continue to put care and effort into, despite knowing that they will likely go unnoticed by most people in the end. His remark that there is an almost spiritual aspect to these minute details; that we charge the objects we make with the attention we put into them. What is important is the content. It is the specific language of the content and its context that drives the work. As well as the context that the work of designing creates in itself. The conversations and relationships it generates, and how those feed into the visual form – directly and indirectly. I'm interested in how practical constraints (budgets, deadlines, technology etc.) as well as various forms of distance (geographically, culturally, historically etc.) transmits in the visual form. Graphic design – like any other language or translation – is never neutral, but affected by the political and cultural climate that surrounds it, which it both (directly and/or indirectly) responds to and (again) is read into. Practicing how to listen to the noise and friction of the material and the rhythms, language and methods of other people, instead of trying to “master” the work, imposing a certain “style” on (over) the content. Looking at typefaces as historical objects, made at specific moments in time, by specific people, as much as studying the visual connotations and references that has accumulated through their use over time – independently (it often seems) from the particular context and/or purpose in which they were initially conceived. Everyday I struggle to resist falling into the passive loops of “suggested for you“ and “explore more content like this”. Watching sports pundits talk about football in a language that is as full of clichés and repetition that it might as well have been scripted by an AI. Or, looking at graphic design (and visual language in general) on Instagram, being adapted (and thereby reduced) to fit a structure in which that which makes the most noise, gets the most attention. Considering the plastic nature of the brain: What am I looking at when I look at an image today? AI – by which I mean the recent explosion of generative image/text services such as chatGPT ao. – being the latest epitomization of exploitative structures and human laziness / lack of care / imagination. Or, as I recently heard the founder of Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki say: “an insult to life itself”. I am not a writer, I am a designer who use writing as a tool to think with. And as a process to think through. To pay attention. The semi-public nature of publishing these textual bits, grants me permission to write. The question whether to publish or not is taken out of the equation. * * * “2015–present: social media allows the dissemination of visual messaging faster than any point in human history. this means a boom in visual literacy that spans cultural, political, and social strata. this cross-pollination demands that previously local operations also must look outward or face economic obsolescence. the use of design on the internet to create messages is often unexpected, subversive, and increasingly geared towards an atomized global audience. social media accelerates media literacy to hyperspeed. privately owned and user-attitude-dependent algorithms profoundly affect our engement with each other. questions of authorship, ownership, and authenticity dominate a completely oversaturated field. issues of justice, representation, and equality become more mainstream, in global advertising. the professional hierachy of graphic design is completely dissolved as global economies and future generations grapple with issues of economic stagnation, overpopulation, and lack of job security. design aided by artificial intelligence allow designers to replicate visual styles and methodology via algorithmic processing. (From: 'thinking in english', harsh patel, 2024) “Tucked away in the stacks were faded copies of the 'Ashanti Pioneer', a pre-independence newspaper subsequently suppressed by Kwame Nkrumah. At some point the paper had begun to run out of typefaces and wasn't in a position to replace them. So the typesetters simply put whatever they had into the type boxes. In any given word there could be a mix of bold, italic and indeed entirely different fonts.” (Ormond Simpson in: London Review of Books) “To abstain from clear visualization of a future is to endure uncertainty. But it is also to level oneself with a rich and open future, with the seeds of the world, with possibility itself. And thereby we might acknowledge an accelerated version of hope that does not hope for something in particular, but rather prepares us to be trustful of what will emerge, unknown and unknowable, in its absolute newness. Thus, and only thus, we might keep open the opportunity of everything that exceeds our wildest expectations. And by such a faithful approach, maybe – maybe – we shall manage to sustain a rich and abundant present, a world in the proper sense of the world, in which anything is possible and things can actually take place.” (Peter Møller Rasmussen in: 'The Law of Vacant Places: Visiting Dinesen's Archive')