Design history · Periodicals
Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design
The critical journal of record for graphic design — long-form criticism since 1990.
Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design was launched in London in November 1990 by the design writer Rick Poynor and the publisher Wordsearch. Where the trade press covered design as a business, Eye covered it as a cultural practice: long essays, historical retrieval, polemical interviews, annual typography specials. Poynor edited the first 24 issues before handing over to Max Bruinsma (issues 25–32) and then John L. Walters (issue 33 onwards). Walters, alongside art director Simon Esterson and Hannah Tyson, led a management buyout in April 2008 and Eye has been self-published as Eye Magazine Ltd ever since. In Autumn 1999 the magazine co-published the First Things First 2000 manifesto, a call to reorder design's priorities away from commercial persuasion, alongside Emigre, Adbusters and the AIGA Journal. The "Reputations" interview series, running from the first issue, built a substantial archive of extended conversations with practitioners including Neville Brody, Paula Scher, Erik Spiekermann and Bruno Monguzzi. Over more than 100 issues and three decades, Eye held its place as the journal of record for graphic-design criticism in the English language.
Design history · Periodicals
Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design
The critical journal of record for graphic design — long-form criticism since 1990.
Eye: The International Review of Graphic Design was launched in London in November 1990 by the design writer Rick Poynor and the publisher Wordsearch. Where the trade press covered design as a business, Eye covered it as a cultural practice: long essays, historical retrieval, polemical interviews, annual typography specials. Poynor edited the first 24 issues before handing over to Max Bruinsma (issues 25–32) and then John L. Walters (issue 33 onwards). Walters, alongside art director Simon Esterson and Hannah Tyson, led a management buyout in April 2008 and Eye has been self-published as Eye Magazine Ltd ever since. In Autumn 1999 the magazine co-published the First Things First 2000 manifesto, a call to reorder design's priorities away from commercial persuasion, alongside Emigre, Adbusters and the AIGA Journal. The "Reputations" interview series, running from the first issue, built a substantial archive of extended conversations with practitioners including Neville Brody, Paula Scher, Erik Spiekermann and Bruno Monguzzi. Over more than 100 issues and three decades, Eye held its place as the journal of record for graphic-design criticism in the English language.
Key facts
- Founded
- November 1990, London — Wordsearch
- Founding editor
- Rick Poynor (issues 1–24, 1990–1997)
- Current editor
- John L. Walters (issue 33–present, from 1999)
- Format
- Quarterly; print; ~96 pages
- Publisher
- Eye Magazine Ltd (self-published since April 2008 management buyout)
- Notable issue
- Eye no.33 (Autumn 1999) — co-published the First Things First 2000 manifesto
Key works & examples
Eye no.33 — First Things First 2000 (Autumn 1999)
1999
Eye no.33, vol.9, Autumn 1999 carried the First Things First 2000 manifesto — a call by 33 visual communicators, including Jonathan Barnbrook, Tibor Kalman and Erik Spiekermann, to reorder design's priorities away from commercial persuasion. The spread was designed by Nick Bell. The manifesto ran simultaneously in Emigre no.51, Adbusters, the AIGA Journal, Blueprint and Items. No single issue of Eye generated more sustained professional debate: it was reprinted, disputed and taught in design schools across the following decade. The cover — a digitally manipulated photographic image with radiating lines of text — became one of the most reproduced covers in the magazine's history.
Eye no.106 — type special issue (Summer 2024)
2024
Eye no.106, Summer 2024 — "This is the type special issue". The cover set a direct typographic statement in heavy black slab serif on a warm tan ground, the Eye wordmark circled in white. It demonstrates the magazine's continuing investment in typography as both subject and formal method: the cover itself is the argument. Under John L. Walters and art director Simon Esterson, Eye's covers have remained among the most deliberate in editorial design — each one a resolved graphic position rather than an image sourced for commercial appeal.
Eye magazine masthead logo
2001
The Eye wordmark — lower-case italic letterforms in the magazine's characteristic purple — has held through more than two decades of editorial handovers. The restrained identity stands apart from the elaborate branding typical of consumer magazines: the name alone, set simply, with no strapline on the cover. The mark was created in 2001 and has changed little since. Design publications tend to rebrand with each change of editor; Eye has not. The continuity says something about what the magazine thinks of itself.