graphic design
1. edition
EDITORS LETTER GRID is a lively and urban magazine that aims to give you a monthly dose of the newest and on-trend topics within the Graphic Design community from a youth’s perspective. Our content is quirky, relevant and mainly centers around Graphic Design. Here at GRID we also know what it’s like when you haven’t found your niche within the graphic world. Our main goal is to help our readers develop as designers with tutorials on relevant trends whilst still aiming to inform you on what’s hot. We want to kick off the first-ever edition of GRID with a significant trend that’s full of fun and inspiration. This issue is all about paying homage to the 80’s. Its back with a vengeance and we love it! This trend is everywhere at the moment. Its fashion, graphic design, furniture and even TV series. This issue focuses on everything 80’s. It delves into designers such as Barbara Kruger and Storm Thorgerson. We take a look at how their work influenced the design community then and now. We also have tutorials on how to create the 80s inspired Isometric Type, tips on how to turn a regular photo into the hot trend that is Duotone and much more! We are happy you chose GRID today and we hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. It’s totally bitchin!
Your Grid-Team 4
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It wouldnt be the 80’s if we didn’t kick the magazine off with Memphis Design. This article covers the nitty gritty of this controversial design trend thats making a come back. We love it by the way.
Isometric Illustration has endless limits and can be used in a structured manner or just for fun. In this Illustrator tutorial we teach you how to make an Isometric Grid from scratch along with tips on creating your own 80’ s inspired type.
This photoshop tutorial teaches you the basics on how to take a regular photo and turn it into a duotone, retro heaven. We have also thrown in how to add texture to your photo to give it that extra umph!
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In this article we cover the basics of typography. We give you some tips on how to treat your white space, the best way to set your text and what typefaces to consider when creating your hierarchy.
For one of our Graphic Designers of the month we have chosen to focus on Storm Thorgenson, a famous album cover artist who has create some of the most iconic album covers of the 80’s.
Screen printing has been around for awhile now but is still just as funky as ever and so we have wanted to give you a refresher on the basics of this retro printing technique. We also touch on the best way to print of textiles.
Memphis Design
Typography 101
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Isometric Type
Storm Thorgenson
14 Duotone
Textile Printing
Barbara Kruger In relation to our 80’s theme we are going to delve into the life of Barbara Kruger, a famous 80s Graphic Designer. We take a look at her early design career as well as how she’s inspired design today.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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MEMPHIS DESIGN
Image courtesy of Dennis Zanone Studio
The group got their name from Bob Dylan’s song „Stuck Inside A Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again“ which the band repeatedly played during their meetings.
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Pattern in the style of Ettore Scottsass’ Bacterio
B
right saturated colors, g eometric shapes, playful patterns and blocky sans serif typeface. If this brief description rings a bell and reminds you of some work that you’ve seen lately then there’s a high possibility that you’ve stumbled across Memphis Design. This polarizing design style originated in the 80’s and is named after a design collective called the Memphis Group. Founded by Ettore Scottsass in Milan the group consisted of several textile, furniture, and ceramic designers. Pop Art and Art Deco can also be noted as influences of the group’s style. Their style initially stemmed from furniture and then made its way onto fashion and now it’s a popular graphic design trend. Here’s a quick understandable guide to the core principles of this extravagant and also controversial trend. Feel free to experiment with it and mail us your work. We are always excited to see what our readers create!
Colors and Typefaces The typical Memphis Design colors are bright almost neon and can be associated with feelings of happiness and excitement.
You often find yellow, teal, orange, lime and magenta in works of that style. The colors are bold without many tones. Variations of the described multi-coloured scheme are often composed of black and white featuring one or two bright accent colors. To achieve a typical Memphis Design feel use typefaces that are bold and playful with an 80’s vibe to it. Geometric fonts with elements such as squares, triangles, and circles work perfectly for this purpose. The usage of fonts with a thick stroke matching other elements used in the design is also considered a good practice, not only but especially in Memphis Design. Be brave with your font choice and try to use fonts with hard edges or the exact opposite, rounded corners to achieve a bubbly look. Also don’t be shy to use a color with the fonts. Memphis Design is meant to attract attention.
Shapes and Patterns You can find geometric shapes and patterns in every variation in Memphis Design. These elements are often free-flowing and break the rules of an underlying grid. This adds to the designs playful flair. What goes for typography is also applicable here. Stay strict geometric or go for the opposite by using bubbly or hand-drawn shapes. Layering shapes to recreate an offset outline look is also a common practice. There is one popular pattern that you can find over and over in Memphis Design that you can use to instantly link your work with Memphis Design. It originated from the design collective’s founder Ettore Scottsass and can, for example, be found in his work Bacterio. Felix Rossel
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ISOMETRIC TYPE I sometric Illustration has been around for a while now and although it may have never left the scene it certainly seems to be everywhere at the moment. It can be playful and simple or technical and meticulous. From retro inspired typefaces to a vast detailed city scene its limits are endless. In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to make an isometric grid from scratch along with a few tips on how to create some 80s inspired letters.
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The Grid 1.
Firstly, create a new artboard. For this tutorial, I have used an artboard with the dimensions of 800 x 800px.
2.
Next, head to your Illustrator Preferences. For Window users, this will be situated under the Edit tab in the Illustrator menu bar. For Mac users, can be found in the AI Illustrator tab. We are then going to scroll down to Preferences > General.
3.
In General tab, we are going to focus on Keyboard Increment and Corner Result. For the Keyboard Increment, enter 3 px and the Corner Radius enter 28 px. You can always change this if you want your lines to be tighter.
4.
On your Artboard, select the line tool and hold down the Shift key to create a perfect vertical line.
5.
For the next step, it may be better to zoom out. With the line selected hold Shift + ALT along with the right arrow key to duplicate the lines. Continue to do this off your artboard.
6.
Select the lines you have just drawn and drag them up to adjust their height so it covers your artboard. It’s better to stretch it over the edge of the artboard so don’t perfectly align them.
7.
For Mac users, use the shortcut CMD + G to group the lines together. For Windows users, use CTRL + G instead of CMD for all of your shortcuts.
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8.
Now you have to copy and paste your grid. With the grid selected press CMD + C to copy and then CMD + V to paste. For Windows users, its CTRL + C and CTRL + V
9.
With the newest grid selected, double-click the Rotate Tool from the toolbar for the window to pop up. Enter 60 degrees for the Rotate Value.
10. Copy and paste the newly angled
grid (see step 9). With only the newest grid selected go to Object > Transform > Reflect and check the Vertical axis.
11. From here you are going to align
your grids together to create the triangles.
12. Select all of the grid and group them together with CMD + G. For Window users, it’s CTRL + G.
13. Before you move the grids on top of your artboard, draw a square that’s equal to your artboard using the rectangle tool.
14. Bring your Square to the front of
your artboard, select everything and head to the Menu bar > Object > Clipping Mask > Make. This will hide all of the excess lines off your artboard.
15. Change the color of the lines by
selecting the grid and changing the stroke color. This makes it easier to see the letters you are going to draw.
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The Type 1.
So now that you’ve created your grid you’re ready to start creating your Isometric Type.
2.
Start by locking the grid on the layers tab to stop it from getting in the way of the letters. Create a new layer and rename it. This is the layer you will be creating your letters on.
3.
Select the Pen Tool from the Tool Bar. From here you are going to start drawing the flat areas of the letters. I usually go by the rule of 3 triangles across, 5 down, 1 wide with a 1 triangle gap (with the exception of W and M as they are the widest characters) but feel free to go wild!
4.
Follow the lines to create a flat rectangular shape. It’s good to take notice of the little intersect prompt as this shows you your lines are meeting between the triangle corners and therefore are straight. (This only applies if Smart Guides is on. To do this head to the Menu Bar and under the View tab you will see Smart Guides) I always zoom in after each shape to check my corners are aligned properly as it’s hard to see when you’re zoomed out.
5.
Start to join each of the corners of your letter whilst going back triangle backwards to give the letter a 3D like dimension.
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6.
Now that you are done with the outline of your letters, select them all and use the Merge Live Paint tool in the Control Menu. This will allow you to color all sides of the shape separately.
7.
Select the Live Bucket Tool in the Tool Bar (you may need to click and hold the Shape Builder Tool for it to appear). Now when you hover over the shape you can see which areas are grouped.
8.
Choose your fill color and go crazy. You can remove the stroke or add patterns to your fill.
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Enjoy the endless possibilities of isometric illustration! Vanessa McQueen
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DUOTONE EFFECT I n this tutorial I am going to show you how to make your pictures look like they're straight from the 80’s with simple steps and just two colours. For this you’ll need Adobe Photoshop, a picture of your choice and some contrast of light and shadow. The picture should have good light and dark contrast in order for us to successfully create a good Duotone photo.
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Duotone Effect 1.
Add the Gradient Map layer by clicking and holding the highlighted button of the layers menu and then going nearly all the way down until you see Gradient Map.
2.
You now have created a new Adjustment Layer on top of your background layer. Clicking on the new layer called Gradient Map 1 will open the Properties panel of the layer. Click on the gradient shown there to get the view shown Step 3.
3.
Double-click on the left little handlearrow on your gradient to get the Color Picker Window to show up. Select your first color here. I chose a pink tone with the hex-value of #ff5abb. Repeat this with the right handle-arrow. I chose a cyan with a value of #69fffd.
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4.
Add another adjustment layer like you did in Step 1 but this time choose Levels. The levels layer should be placed between your current layers in the layers window. To do so click and hold on the created layer then drag it to the desired position.
5.
When you click on the layer the Properties panel shows up again but this time with a histogram of the the picture. By clicking and moving the little handles on the bottom border of the histogram you change the look of the picture. Play around with them get your perfect color balance.
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The Texture 6.
I created a new layer on top of the others and filled it with my texture. I recommend naming your layers by double-clicking on the name of the layer so you don‘t get confused.
7.
Click on the little drop menu underneath the search panel and change the blending mode of the Texture-Layer to Overlay. Adjust the opacity of the layer to your likes by clicking on the small highlighted window that you can nd directly above the Texture-Layer. I chose a value of 50%.
Sakari Pietlä & Felix Rossel
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WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? T
ypography is a very broad subject, full of traps. However, knowing its rules is essential in becoming a successful graphic designer and web developer. Finding the right font for your project is very important and completes the whole design.
Keep it simple It is very easy to overdose on typefaces and effects so air on the side of caution. Web offers us thousands of free fonts, but most of them are far from perfect. That’s why it is important to start with classic and simple fonts such as Bodoni, Futura or Garamond and then working your way up to the extremes. Sticking to a maximum of 3 typefaces is also key to a minimal and simplistic design so remember, less is more.
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Readability When setting a layout for a magazine, website or just playing with type in a poster, you always need to keep in mind the how readable the typeface is to your audience. Even though something may seem obvious and clear to you it may not to be the people viewing your design. A dope futuristic font found on the internet may look cool and may be giving your design that final touch but it also needs to get your message across. Roman typefaces are usually better for large bodies of text in a book, newspaper or magazine article. Whereas sans-serifs or slab-serifs are good for headings and sub-headings. If you are working with web projects always try to work with fonts that are mainly used on screens like Verdana or Arial.
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P Y A T R G O O P P Y Y T T G O O P P Y T TY White Spaces
Many people get a case of Kenophobia (fear of empty spaces) and try to fill as much as they can in their design without taking in consideration the importance of white spaces. White spaces are very important when it comes to creating balance in your layout. It helps with readability and contrast. It is always better to leave more space for your content so it can breath.
Setting body text
Choosing the right setting for a body of text can be a daunting task but it all depends on what the text is being used for. For instance, centered text works well in a menu for a restaurant or a poetry. You need to consider how you’re going to create contrast between lines of text, otherwise it will become monotonous. Justified text is commonly used in magazines or newspapers but this comes with
its downsides. Justified text usually has a lot of white space between words which can throw the eye off so manual tracking and kerning is a must. Personally speaking, I feel that flush left, ragged right is the best option. This is because it follows a natural path for our eye and usually requires less adjustment than justified text.
It is all about details
Many designers and web developers forget to take a look a look at the individual letters and words within a body text, but instead look at the text as a whole. As a designer you should always remember to take a look at every line of the text and adjust letter spacing and kern characters which don’t fit together to make sure line spacing is perfect. Pro Tip - if you struggle with noticing errors in your text try to look at it with blurred vision to catch too much of a blank space between the words.
Justyna Sedkowska
TYPOGRAPHY
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STORM THORGENSON I
t was no more just the task of showing us the face of the artist. The design started to develop its wild side to pick our brains and go deeper in the soul of the artist. Album cover art blew up in the 80’s and started to break frames of the old fashioned white teeth portraits.
Photo by Rankin
You can’t really talk about album cover designing without talking about Storm Thorgenson. The man who has done a huge deal of work for such great names like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Audioslave, Muse and many more. If you’re a fan of some of these bands you surely know what I’m talking about. Even though his style was already formed before the 80’s, Thorgerson did some great album covers with his company and on his own. After his death he was titled as a master of music, ideas and very high standards. He was respected not only for his great ideas and work but also for his work ethics and forward going attitude. Even only two days before his death he was making sure things weren’t going to be delayed. He didn’t just show the way for the graphic designing of album covers, but he set it to flames that would burn his mark to the history.
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“All I try to do is represent the music” — Storm Thorgenson
Hipgnosis Along with his colleague Aubrey “Po” Powell he created the most iconic covers that people talk about even today and may not even realize it. They ran their company under the name Hipgnosis which was a combination of the words hip and hypnosis. The first time hearing the name already gives you an idea that you’re going to have some sour candy for the eye. Not only were his works graphically intelligent but also typographically developed. Only a humble, modest man with such complex and delicate skill can say, “All I try to do is represent the music”. It makes me think that he must have some sort of subtle sensitivity to be able to create such pieces of art. And even when he creates a masterpiece he keeps in mind that the fans are there for the band and the designer is not the main attraction. One would think that his art is surrealistic but he thought himself more of being a performance artist, which is also seen in various works of his. He takes the pieces of the puzzle and makes them dance in ways that yours truly couldn’t imagine, even
in his most miraculous dreams. Nothing is random. The lighting doesn’t happen to be the way it is because of dumb luck. The lines don’t align like they do because they just fell there. Every part has a role and they’re playing it in a sweet, trembling harmony. If you go and move one thing you might mess up the whole set. You need to consider the entirety and that’s without a doubt what Storm wants you to do when you’re looking at his art and processing it.
This Is My Way But not only with a humble heart and sensitive soul of the artist you cannot figure this business out, especially if you’re wanting to achieve the same level as Thorgerson. You have to have an ego strong enough to be able to say “this is my way” and “I’m getting this through”. A Designer should surely be confident about their work to make the cut, but to reach balance between your sensitive side and business, you have to possess some hard-boiled ego going on and pushing you forward to not only make the cut, but make change, be the change.
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Pink Floyd – Chip Off The Old Block
Photo by Storm Thorgerson
Lesson Learnt What can we learn from this magnificent man? We know that working on this level is something you don’t just easily achieve, yet maintain the level and being able to create something mind blowing time after time. In this time of digitalization and technical explosion designers often work and think through their computers, being efficient with the bits and bytes they are moving around with clicks of their mouse. Rather than that Storm’s way of doing things includes being close to the artist and your client. The material that you’re going to be working with is supposed to be exciting. Its supposed to you and make you want to bring the pure soul of it to the visual world.
Doing things by heavy lifting doesn’t necessarily sound appealing for a designer but getting your hands dirty can open numerous doors to different worlds of ideas that each work in a different way and for a different cause. Creating real things to use in designs creates a strong bond to a design and possibly gives you a more concrete feeling about the story behind the design. So don’t be afraid of walking through mud a bit or getting some blisters on your hands while putting up that pole where to stick that purple and shiny banana. It also helps to keep your job interesting and colourful when your email folder keeps getting occupied and filled. Sakari Pietilä
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© Warner Bros. Records
Picture in Public Domain
© Peter Gabriel
© The Alan Parson Project
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TEXTILE PRINTING
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o you have a design that would look great on a T-Shirt? Then you should continue reading. This article is all about screen printing and printing techniques that can be used on textiles. If you are a classically schooled designer then you might already know everything there is to know about offset and digital printing but these techniques do not apply when printing on garments.
History Screen Printing is also known as silk screening and is one of the oldest known printing methods. It first appeared in China and then spread to other Asian countries. It has been said that screen printing can be traced back to as early as the 4th century in India or even further back to Egypt in 3000 AD. It took a while until it finally came to the western world in the late 18th century. In the 20th century, the printing methods made it into pop culture thanks to its ongoing development and artists like Andy Warhol. He used the technique for his famous Marilyn Monroe Print.
The Technique You basically only need three things for a monochrome screen-printing. A screen. Ink and a squeegee. Firstly, the screen with the motif gets placed on top of the material and then the color is added to one end of the screen and pushed through the mesh with the squeegee. Because the color only gets through the uncovered parts of the mesh you end up with a motif on the material. So far so good. BUT how do you put the motif on the screen and how do you make multicoloured prints?
To make prints with more than one color you need to have multiple screens. One screen for each color. The screens are covered with emulsion and only spare out the parts that get printed in the color it is used for. You start printing with the color that is most dominant in your design, let it dry and then add the screen for the next dominant color on top of it, and so on.
Making a Screen There are several different techniques for making the screen. The professional one uses an emulsion that hardens when exposed to UV light. Because of that, it is necessary to make the screens under a special light that doesn’t emit UV Light. The emulsion gets spread evenly on the screen and then has to rest for drying. After drying the emulsion can still get washed out of the mesh without any problems. Now the motif get’s placed on the screen. The design is printed in black on a transparent so when placed on the screen the ink on the transparent protects the emulsion from any kind of light. When the motive is where it needs to be the screen gets exposed to UV Light, which lets the emulsion harden where the light hits it.
PRINTING
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After this process, the screen will be rinsed with water and the emulsion that wasn’t hardened will be washed away. You then end up with a screen ready to print with. This is called manual screen printing where everything is done by hand. When screen printing needs to be done in higher quantities automatic screen printing comes into use. The production of the screen is also done manually but machines are used for the printing part of the process. These machines can hold multiple screens rotate, place and print the screens automatically.
Direct to Garment Direct to Garment is a technique that uses modified ink-jet technology. Developed during the 90s, the technique took off as it allowed more detailed prints than screen printing. It is also cost-effective for batches of lower quantities.
DTG has no setup costs since it uses only ink and doesn’t need a screen or plates like in offset printing. The color doesn’t impact the costs of your design that much either.
Transfer Printing This method uses heat to transfer the design onto the garment. First, the design gets printed on a special heat sensitive paper which then gets placed on the garment. A heat press is used to fixate the print. This method is also good for smaller quantities and complex designs just like DTG. Another benefit is that the color of the garment isn’t a factor that has to be considered. Remember that not every garment can be used for Transfer Printing since heat is used in the process. Designs also need to have clean edges for cutting, which narrows the possible designs options. Felix Rossel
Screen-printing can also be a fun and cheap DIY project that you can do at home.
PRINTING
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BARBARA KRUGER W
ith this issue of GRID being dedicated to the 80’s, we want to shed light on the popularity of the decade’s creative styles and their main influencers. Barbara Kruger is one of those people, whose work not only lives on today but has helped to shape our culture in the way it is now.
Early Years Born in 1945 Barbara Kruger grew up as the only child of a chemical technician and a legal secretary in a lower-middle-class family in Newark, New Jersey. Kruger showed an interest in art and design from an early age and so decided to enrol at the Syracuse University to study Art and Design. She stayed there for one year until she decided to drop out after the death of her father. Only shortly after that, she continued her higher education by moving to New York to take advanced design and art classes at the
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Parsons School of Design. Though she started out enthusiastic about her new classes Kruger began to feel disillusioned with the art school and so decided to try something new.
Condé Nast In 1966, after graduating, Barbara found a job at Condé Nast Publications in New York. With her raw talent and determination, the young designer and artist impressed her seniors and was offered work at multiple other publications. Her early career peaked at the tender age of 22 when she was promoted to the role of the lead designer of the Mademoiselle Magazine after working there for only one year. But her success working as a graphic designer didn’t satisfy her. She felt that design work did not provide her with the creative outlet that she craved. Kruger’s earliest works as an artist date back to the same year, on which she worked during her time as a graphic designer.
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Photography
Irony and Sarcasm
Barbara started to immerse herself in the field of photography during her teaching career. Her background as a graphic designer influenced her photography as she modified her pictures with the help of technology. That resulted in the release of her book Picture/Readings in 1979 – a series of black and white photographs accompanied by bold text. This aesthetic would later develop to become Barbara Kruger’s signature style. Black, White, and Red are the colors of Kruger. This color scheme can be spotted through all decades usually displaying powerful messages. Therefore it appears to be the right scheme for Kruger’s consume-critique and often feminist artworks. Kruger typographic style is defined by the use of Futura Bold Oblique as well as Helvetica Ultra Condensed in white on a red background. Both fonts have excellent qualities for her style because of their bold weight and their poster aesthetics. Her work aims to help her audience reflect on their values defined by consumerism and culture.
In the 80’s, her most productive decade, Kruger started to incorporate already existing pictures out of newspapers and magazines into her art. Her growing interest in poetry and the power of words gave Kruger the necessary insights to develop strong often ironic and sarcastic messages in her artworks. The use of typical magazine and advertisement photography juxtaposed with her bold ironic wording formed Kruger’s distinctive style.
Supreme Lawsuit Influences of Kruger can ironically be found in one of fashions currently most popular street- and skatewear brands logo – Supreme. The companies founder, James Jebbia, admitted that the logo was taken from Kruger’s work. Kruger herself did not comment on that until Supreme filed a lawsuit against another streetwear brand that used a modified version of Supremes original logo. Kruger commented this with “What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers. I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement.“ The lawsuit was later dropped. Felix Rossel
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(Untiteled) I shop therefore I am
© 1987 Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger
(Untitled) Your body is a battleground
© 1989 Barbara Kruger
What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers. I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement.“ — Barbara Kruger
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Unattributed images are either owned by teammembers or found on Unsplash or Adobe Stock. The writers of GRID are four young Graphic Design and Web Development students studying at the University of Jonkoping, Sweden. Combined, we have a little and a lot of experience within the graphic design world and so we are just as much about growing and developing as our readers. We are aiming to clear a path of what’s on trend within the design community from a youth’s perspective. contact: info@grid-mag.se
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