People’s Graphic Design Archive

Carmelo Catania Luthier Catalogue

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:53:11 +0000

Between the late nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century, the city of Catania, Sicily, emerged as one of Italy's leading centres for the manufacture and export of stringed musical instruments, particularly guitars and mandolins. Approximately 130 workshops are estimated to have been active during this period, producing thousands of instruments and components for both domestic and international markets. Their output contributed significantly to the widespread circulation of Sicilian craftsmanship beyond the island. The prominence achieved by Catanese lutherie is further attested by the space devoted to the sector at the 1907 Catania International Exposition.

Among the many craftsmen and instrument makers active during these years, Carmelo Catania (1908–1970) occupies a particularly significant position. A gifted innovator, he built his first harp guitar at the age of seventeen. Following the Second World War, he recognized the entrepreneurial potential of instrument manufacturing and, in the late 1950s, established a large-scale factory in Mascalucia, on the slopes of Mount Etna. At its peak, the company employed around fifty workers and produced approximately 12,000 instruments annually. A substantial proportion of this output was exported, reflecting the firm's remarkable commercial success in international markets. Catania instruments were distributed throughout Europe, the Americas, the Mediterranean region, Africa, and several parts of Asia and Oceania.

The company's production focused primarily on guitars, mandolins, and violins. It was, however, in guitar making that Carmelo Catania's technical and formal experimentation found its fullest expression. His instruments were distinguished by innovative construction methods, visually distinctive designs, and a sustained commitment to technological innovation. Indeed, he was probably among the first Italian luthiers to manufacture electrified guitars.

This experimental attitude was equally evident in the company's visual communication.

The most distinctive aspect of the Catania catalogues is their graphic language, which represented a marked departure from the prevailing visual culture of Sicily at the time. While much of the printed material associated with Catanese lutherie remained rooted in the decorative vocabulary of Art Nouveau, the Catania catalogues adopted a modern and dynamic visual idiom that was clearly receptive to international graphic trends. This approach was entirely consistent with the innovative character of the company's instruments and with Carmelo Catania's experimental vision, establishing a coherent relationship between product design and graphic representation.

Printed in Faenza by local presses, the catalogues avoid a fixed or repetitive visual structure. Instead, each family of instruments is presented through a distinctive visual narrative. Pages devoted to individual models employ different atmospheres and compositional strategies, while others juxtapose multiple instruments within elaborate graphic arrangements. The result is a sequence of shifting visual rhythms, aesthetic registers, and graphic languages that guides the reader through the catalogue, transforming it into a genuine site of graphic experimentation.

One of the catalogues' most recurrent features is the use of photographic collage. Although this technique was already well established, it is employed here with remarkable dynamism and originality. Photographs of the instruments interact with airbrushed colour fields, geometric forms, abstract backgrounds, and compositional devices that anticipate the visual vocabulary of Pop culture. Despite being manufactured in Sicily, the instruments are rarely associated with conventional imagery of local tradition. References to the island remain deliberately understated, conveyed instead through chromatic and formal allusions to the Mediterranean environment—its sunlight, sea, and atmosphere—rather than through explicit representations of Sicilian identity.

Nicola D'Arcangelo: Graphic Culture in Abruzzo

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:06:04 +0000

Nicola D’Arcangelo (1892–1964) was one of the most important typographers and fine-art printers in twentieth-century Abruzzo. The son of Donato D’Arcangelo, a printer and publisher active in Atri since the late nineteenth century, he was trained within a family tradition deeply rooted in the world of printing, inheriting both technical expertise and a strong visual sensibility. After later moving to Pescara, he accompanied through his work the growth of a young city undergoing rapid transformation. Today, his production stands as a valuable visual record of the economic, cultural, and urban changes that shaped Abruzzo during the first half of the twentieth century. Although he worked far from the main centres of Italian graphic culture, he contributed to the dissemination of modern visual languages and to the construction of Pescara’s graphic identity through posters, publications, commercial print materials, and promotional ephemera.

He absorbed influences from Rationalism and Futurism and brought them into a peripheral context such as Abruzzo. In his compositions, solutions close to Art Déco also emerge, evident in the geometrization of forms, the use of symmetry, and typographic choices. The text itself is no longer merely content to be read, but becomes part of the image, contributing to the construction of the page’s visual balance.

Particularly significant is his production of illustrated calendars, regarded as among the most original achievements of his graphic research. These are not simple consumer objects, but elaborate compositions of numbers, letters, symbols and colours arranged according to complex schemes — transforming something everyday and destined to be thrown away into something closer to a visual experiment. It is telling that these objects, among the most ephemeral that exist, are precisely the ones that have survived in near-complete series to the present day.

This legacy is preserved in the Fondo D'Arcangelo, donated to the University of L'Aquila in 2007 by the printer's family. The archive documents over ninety years of typographic activity by the D'Arcangelo family (1883–1975) and comprises thousands of items: graphic artefacts, preparatory sketches, posters, calendars, postcards, letterheads, sample books, publications, periodicals and correspondence. Of particular note are more than five hundred original sketches and a near-complete run of wall calendars produced between 1931 and 1975, which allow close examination of the creative process and the evolution of his visual language.

More than a professional archive, the D’Arcangelo Collection represents a material record of printed communication in twentieth-century Abruzzo. Through these documents it is possible to reconstruct not only the career of a typographer and graphic designer, but also the relationships between culture, business, institutions, and everyday life that accompanied the development of Pescara and the wider region. The collection also reflects the historical and political context in which D’Arcangelo operated: some works include symbols and visual references associated with Fascist imagery and, in specific cases, with the broader visual culture that characterised Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Rather than isolated personal statements, these elements reveal the ideological and communicative climate of the period, showing how local graphic production was likewise shaped by the political narratives and tensions of its time.

Newtype: August, 1989

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:03:45 +0000

This archive is of an August 1989 edition of the Japanese magazine Newtype, which often covers news relating to anime, manga, science fiction, and film. The cover and title logo, designed by Tetsuya Asakura exemplifies 1980s Japanese mecha craze. Depicted on the cover of the magazine is an image from the 1989 Japanese film GUNHED directed by Masato Harada which is an live-action adaptation of the manga which shares the same name. In bold yellow text (left of actor Masahiro Takashima) is the film’s name written in Japanese, accompanied by an illustration of the GUNHED mech centered in the background of the magazine’s cover. On the rear magazine are a selection of images from the film Patlabor: The Movie promoting the release of two mech models found in the film, and an additional ad for Macross models at the bottom of the page.

Model Graphix: Vol205 December, 2001

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:01:12 +0000

These image archives are of the 205th volume of Model Graphix released December 2001. Model Graphix, published by Dai Nippon Kaiga, is a Japanese magazine series which covers model news. Designed by Masake Inoue and artistically directed by Kazuo Niwa and Takashi Yokokawa, this magazine contains various news like new model releases as well as featuring photography of award winning or impressive dioramas. On this issue’s cover is an AV-98 Ingram mech from the popular Japanese ip Patlabor which spans an animated series and multiple films. Accompanying the mech are the title and logo of the magazine in large bold typography. Vertical text on the left-hand side of the cover has a top reflective silver and matte black grounding describing the exclusive contents to be found within the magazine.

Cataloghi di Vita e paesaggio di Capo d’Orlando

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:49:13 +0000

The national exhibition Vita e paesaggio di Capo d’Orlando (Life and landscape of Capo d’Orlando) was born in 1955 in the homonymous city of the Messina province, in Sicily, as an art residency focused on realist painting, with the purpose not only of bringing art in the Tyrrhenian town, but also to let people know the beauty of its landscape. The art residency method, adopted to let the artists make works born from actually living that place, was dropped in the 1963 edition, with the broadening of the invites to a larger quantity of artists as a consequence (from fifteen to over three hundred). Furthermore, in this edition, an art director is chosen for the first time, Albano Rossi from the Sindacato Libero Arti Figurative di Palermo, with support from Donatella Moncada. However, the new arrangements were largely criticized, especially by the artists who stated the need to live the place to be able to capture its essence in painting. In fact, in these years, the exhibition felt stuck in a past dimension, outside of the artistic tendencies that were already spreading in the rest of Italy. A turning point can be found in 1968 with the admission of Vittorio Fagone, Basilio Reale e Giuseppe Sicari in the committee, art critics in contact with Milan and Rome art scenes, opposed however by the rest of the jury, loyal to the traditional ways of the exhibition. Besides, during the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the painter Eduardo Arroyo stated his refusal of the traditional religious blessing of the exhibition during the opening ceremony, the prize assignment mechanisms and the conventional ways of art exhibitions. This event connects Capo d’Orlando to the general environment of protests that were spreading in that year even in the art scene. The next edition, in 1970, opens to the experimental techniques and art research of that period, also dropping the competition among the artists. Landscape becomes the representation of a way of living, a society, no longer a simple landscape view. This vision culminates in 1973 with the signing by the artists, with Vittorio Fagone and Guido Giuffrè, of a document asking for some modifications just before the opening ceremony, which stated the need for real meetings with the people during the artists’ stay in the town. The exhibition continues in an experimental environment also because of Fagone’s guidance, until 1978, when his exclusion from the committee caused an involution. When he returned to the head of the exhibition in 1980, he suggested an exhibition titled Mixed Media – Immagini scritture suoni azioni (Mixed Media – Images writing sound actions), which already shows the intention of leaving the expression to a non-strictly figurative model. The next year, with Fagone as the art director once more, the Universa Ars exhibition reflects on the many sides of contemporary art, leaving its trace in the national art scene. The 80s go on with subject exhibitions after Fagone’s farewell to the committee and until his return in 1987 with the Extra Moenia exhibition, which talked about the crisis of the role of big cities and the new experiences of the smaller towns. Many exhibitions followed, with Fagone’s art direction, like Ricercare la bellezza, Isola, Isole, Nord verso Sud, Sud verso Nord and A capo in 1991, which was almost a full stop in the story of this exhibition series, that tried to go on in the following years, with a very different result from the past decades. The exhibition’s heritage was finally received by the LOC, which focuses on preserving and promoting the collection.

Every edition had some printed materials, like the catalogues which are stored up in the archives at LOC. The ones starting from the tenth edition (1968) are particularly interesting: the first one is a square catalogue which unveiled all the information as it was opened and that resulted in a poster with twenty-seven printed fingerprints which represented every artist of that edition. It was printed by Arti Grafiche Cosentino in Palermo, who might have done the actual design work too, since a graphic designer is never mentioned in the catalogue. The same printing house also worked on the next edition in 1970, which follows the same poster-catalogue formula, and has a typographic composition with the artists’ names in a “wave” shape on the front. In the following years the poster formula was dropped, though remaining loyal to the square shape, in the form of a four-sided foldable booklet, with a typographic identity which stayed coherent until 1974 and was later recovered in 1976. It is not clear who designed nor printed these editions’ catalogues, but they all have a front page with the year and place standing out in a serif font which is also used in the internal pages for the artists’ name list; the prevailing colors are, once again, red and black, used by themselves or alternated, like in the 1970’s catalogue.

Who Will Make the Pulse of Our Time Beat Faster? (時代の心臓を鳴らすのは誰だ) Poster for PARCO, 1979

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:47:45 +0000

Pop singer, actor, and composer, Kenji Sawada (aka Julie) is posed in this 1979 Parco poster.

Kenji Sawada was famously known for his Bold style and elaborate disguises. For this campaign, however, art director Eiko Ichioka decided to strip away those layers. Her goal was to try to get him to forget his fame, and just be one of the boys.

Flags of Revolt and Defiance

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 20:20:37 +0000

“Polly Apfelbaum's project at the Neiman Center, Flags of Revolt and Defiance, is a portfolio of 31 color screenprints that take the form of emblematic flags. Inspired by an installation work presented at the Lodz Biennale in 2004, Apfelbaum selected a group of flags that represent revolutionary cultural and political movements throughout history. Some are highly recognizable images such as the Black Panther Party flag and LGBT pride rainbow spectrum while others are more obscure. To create a new system of symbols, Apfelbaum superimposed her own iconic pop flower shape on each flag. ”

(Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies)

Edition Size: 27
Sheet Size: 30 x 19 inches

https://www.neiman.arts.columbia.edu/polly-apfelbaum

Disclosure Day

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 13:14:15 +0000

If you found out we weren’t alone... would that frighten you?” — a Classic Steven Spielberg wonder meets modern unease. 👽

Disclosure Day 🎬

@disclosureday @amblin @universalpictures @dgkoepp @unistudios @universalcreativeofficial @imdb @imax

#disclosureday #stevenspielberg #extraterrestrial #ufo #uap #alien #posters #keyart #posterdesign

Alternative key art for Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day (2026).

Poster designed by Studio Javio. 🎨

Open for commission & collabs.

I Tabellari – The Roman mobility craftsmen

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:48:16 +0000

ATAC is the main public transport company in Rome. The origins date back to 1845, when one bus line connected Piazza Venezia and Basilica di San Paolo started working, becoming the city’s first public transport route. In the following years, other routes were introduced contributing to urban mobility development.

Over about 160 years of public transport operation in Rome, not only did the vehicles evolve, but so did the communication systems designed for passengers. Early vehicles displayed rectangular destination boards indicating their terminals, often produced without any coordinated design guidelines. These were later replaced by systems introduced by Società Romana Tramway e Omnibus (SRTO), which adopted recognisable signs featuring white backgrounds and dark lettering, positioned on the front and sides of vehicles to indicate routes.

Within this context of progressive service development, ATAG (Azienda Tranvie e Autobus del Governatorato) was established in 1909. Following the fall of Fascism, it became ATAC (first Azienda Tranviaria Autofiloviaria Comunale and later Azienda Tramvie e Autobus del Comune di Roma). Throughout the 20th century, ATAC became the main operator of Roman mobility, managing most of the urban transportation.

It was also in 1909 that the first tabellari emerged. Employees whose task was to hand-paint destination boards and bus stop signs. Their work marked the beginning of a professional tradition that would span almost a century of Roman mobility, evolving from a practical necessity into a form of urban typographic craftsmanship.

To start this job, people were selected from among municipal transport workers for their attitude in handwriting and drawing. They then undertook an apprenticeship based on manual practice and the repetition of the same letterforms—much like ancient scribes. Many learned from older colleagues, repeatedly copying words and numbers until they achieved complete mastery of the gesture.

During this period of urban expansion, routes changed frequently. As a result, signs required constant production and regular updating.

Initially, signs were made from wood or untreated metal. From the 1930s to the 1980s, production became consolidated within the company workshops on Via Prenestina, where they adopted a standardised system. The signs consisted of removable rectangular steel plates, supported by two lateral pins and topped with a cast-iron frame.

The process required specialised tools and precision. The plates were first painted white by hand and then ruled in pencil, marking only the baseline; the height and proportions of the letters depended entirely on the artisan’s experience. The plate was placed on an inclined surface, while the painter’s hand was supported by a wooden or metal rod, allowing lettering without touching the painted surface.

The tabellari used flat-tipped brushes, often modified or handmade from commercially available ones that were compressed, trimmed and reshaped to achieve the desired stroke. Each artisan knew exactly how much paint to load and how to distribute it along a line, maintaining consistent thickness, inclination and proportions. Their experience allowed them to compose balanced and precise lettering directly by hand while the paints were commonly diluted with acetone to accelerate drying.

Service information, such as route numbers and terminal destinations, was often produced using stencil masks and sans-serif lettering frequently through screen-printing techniques to ensure consistency.

Intermediate stops, however, were written entirely freehand. The calligraphic technique was highly disciplined and transmitted from “master” to “apprentice.”The calligraphic technique was strict and passed down from master to apprentice. The style developed internally within the company recalled the uncial and gothic script used in manuscripts produced by Latin and Byzantine scribes between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD.

Once a sign had fulfilled its function, it was sanded down and repainted for reuse. Oral testimonies from the 1970s report that only three artisans were responsible for the production and maintenance of approximately 12,000 signs, sometimes painting as many as sixty or seventy in a single day.

During the 1990s, before the profession disappeared completely, these signs were still occasionally produced for service notices, emergency announcements, and temporary routes associated with conferences, exhibitions, sporting events and cultural manifestations, for which industrial production would not have been economically viable. This visual heritage survived until the gradual introduction of industrial printing techniques and computerised signage systems.

This profession ultimately vanished with the arrival of the new millennium. The artisans who preserved this specialised knowledge gradually retired and were not replaced, bringing to a close an era in which urban signage was also the expression of a distinctive manual and visual culture.

Bibliography / Sources:

Calligrafia 1991-1995 - A cura di Lucia Cesarone

Andrea Frasca, L'identificazione delle linee urbane; le tabelle di linea, tramroma.com, 10-09-2021, link articolo.

Marco Valerio, Un salto nel passato dei trasporti grazie al modellismo. Una mostra a Torre Maura, diarioromano.it, 03-02-2023, link articolo.

Textile Designs

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:44:42 +0000

One year after Issey Miyake opened his design studio in Tokyo 1970, he commissioned Eiko Ishioka to design textiles for his first New York SS Collection.

Only a few hours after the dresses were displayed in the Bloomingdale's window display, they were immediately taken down due to customer complaints about them being “too vulgar and indecent”. They were quite surprised by the conservatism of the city.

Power Now

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:43:35 +0000

In 1968, during the height of world wide protests against the United States' involvement in the Vietnam war, Eiko was invited by Gallery Nippon to participate in a poster exhibition entitled “War, Protest, and Freedom.”

Offset Poster printed on metallic paper.

Sagrada Esperança (Sacred Hope)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:40:32 +0000

Sagrada Esperança (Sacred Hope) belongs to the Vozes do Mundo (Voices of the World) collection, composed of 3 books with one author each. The cover design was done by Sebastião Rodrigues. Printed in Portugal, at Lisgráfica, SARL - Queluz de Baixo, this is the first edition, published in 1974, the year of the Carnation Revolution, by Livraria Sá da Costa Editora in Lisbon.

The author, Agostinho Neto, was an incredibly important Angolan politician who led the MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola). Having lived through the Portuguese military dictatorship, his links with the Portuguese Communist Party and anti-colonial political activities resulted in his imprisonment by the political police, the PIDE, several times during his life. He wrote most of his poems in prison.

His various imprisonments led to major international revolts and the revolutionary climate generated triggered the Colonial War. After the 25th of April of 1974 (the Carnation Revolution) and the independence of Angola, Agostinho Neto received the Lenin Peace Prize and was proclaimed its first president, leading the country with Marxist-Leninist ideology.

The designer, Sebastião Campos Afonso Rodrigues dos Santos (Dafundo, 1929-1997) was a celebrated figure in the field of graphic design in Portugal during the second half of the 20th century, best known for directing the magazine Almanaque. Sebastião Rodrigues collaborated with the Estado Novo regime, notably with the National Information Secretariat.

Although he can in fact be called a "designer of the regime," Sebastião Rodrigues presented himself as apolitical, working on any project regardless of ideology, always prioritizing the practice of design.

Analyzing these elements and taking into account the entire context behind this book, it is not surprising that the author's name is highlighted, considering that Agostinho Neto was the first president of independent Angola and the leader of a movement. His name carries the weight of an arduous struggle.

The colors of the cover, besides alluding to the Angolan flag, also illustrate this battle. Together with the title "Sacred Hope," they paint the image of a night sky and the light of faith in the brighter days yet to come, thematically consistent with the poetry contained within its pages. This is the dialectic of light and hope in Neto's lyricism. Light frequently appears in opposition to the darkness of the colonial period. Geopolitical clarity, the search for truth and a dignified life intersect in his verses, drawing a horizon where the conquest of national sovereignty is seen as an inseparable step towards the total emancipation of the African continent.

The dehumanization and precariousness experienced in colonial Angola were so harsh that they resulted in the eventual exhaustion of all peaceful means of action, leading to the explosion that was the revolution of February 4, 1961. This day marked the beginning of the armed acts, being an attempt to rescue political prisoners that resulted in a massacre by the Portuguese police and army against defenseless populations, in addition to the violent response against the combatants. It was poems like those of Agostinho Neto that mobilized the masses. Their effectiveness can be attributed to the “Intelligent Music” of their writing: Neto's poetry (with special emphasis on emblematic works such as Sacred Hope) uses a very particular rhythmic and musical cadence that serves as a vehicle for seduction and ideological mobilization. The poetic technique is directly converted into a structured political weapon for combat and mass awareness.

Thus, the book is admittedly a political manifesto, with the poetry of Angolan authors like Agostinho Neto being crucial in the construction of a national identity capable of claiming its autonomy.

Bibliography:

https://www.angop.ao/noticias/grandes-reportagens/bandeira-de-angola-simbolo-de-resistencia-e-identidade-nacional/

https://publicacoes.unigranrio.edu.br/magistro/article/view/1059/621

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastião_Rodrigues

https://dxd.pt/portugal-pelo-lapis-de-sebastiao-rodrigues/

https://www.tipografos.net/portugal/sebastiao-rodrigues.html

https://www.marxists.org/portugues/tematica/mpla/pdf/68.pdf

Andex Oil logo

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:38:35 +0000

Designer: Michael Lewis Pacey
Studio: Supergraphics Design
Client: Andex Oil
Year: Circa 1972

The Andex logo was second of six logos that graced the walls of the Supergraphics Design studio, at 1162 Hornby Street in Vancouver, in the mid 1970’s.

This logo was published in CA-74, The fiftieth Annual Exhibition Sponsored by Communications Arts Magazine, and won three awards including:
• 1972 - The Graphica Club of Montreal
• 1973 - Art Directors Club of Los Angeles Thirtieth Annual Western Advertising Art Exposition
• 1973-74 - The Advertising & Design Club of Canada (ADCC)

This logo is an archived winner on the @adcc website: https://theadcc.ca/archive/andex-oil-ltd-_1973-1974_award_graphic-design

Other logos in this series include:
Ammo Power Tools
Andex Oil
Atlas Travel
Yukon Volleyball
Colleen Kennedy
B/K Electric

Vector files created by his son Robert Pacey @paceyandpacey

#MichaelLewisPacey
#MLPaceyLogos
#MLPArchives
#SuperGraphicsDesign
#MichaelPaceyDesign

TRANCE: Periodico di musica e società

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 19:35:38 +0000

Trance – Periodico di musica e società (Trance – Music and Society Magazine) was founded in Pisa as a supplement to Radio Ulisse and became one of the most significant publishing ventures of the city's underground scene during the second half of the 1980s. Emerging within the context of free radio broadcasting and post-punk culture, the magazine aimed to provide an independent space for information and critical discussion devoted to independent music, artistic experimentation, and alternative youth cultures. Between 1985 and 1987, four issues were published. They became part of the network of Italian fanzines of the period, distinguishing themselves through their graphic quality and editorial care. The project originated from the collaboration between Aldo Bassoni, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, and Luca Doni, Marzio Gracci, and Luca Gennai, who were active in the areas of Pisa, Pontedera, and Ponsacco during a particularly vibrant period for local music subcultures. At the time, Pisa was one of the most active centres of the Italian punk and hardcore scene. Around venues such as Victor Charlie and, later, Macchia Nera, as well as record stores and a network of musicians and enthusiasts, a highly receptive environment for both Italian and international independent productions had developed. The creation of Trance also responded to the need to fill a gap left by the mainstream music press, which largely focused on already established artists. The magazine therefore served as a platform for documenting and promoting post-punk, new wave, industrial, and hardcore bands, many of which were active only through cassette demos or independent record labels. Its goal was not merely to review records but to contribute to the construction of an alternative cultural network.

The title reflected this approach: Trance did not refer to issues of gender identity, but rather to the psychological state induced by music, particularly the hypnotic and ritualistic sounds associated with certain post-industrial productions. (Among its key references were bands such as Psychic TV and the creative universe of Genesis P-Orridge).

From its very first issue, the magazine also stood out for its technical production. Rather than relying on the traditional photocopied format, the editors chose offset printing and personally covered the costs involved. This decision resulted in a visual quality superior to that of most contemporary fanzines, bringing the publication closer to the standards of a professional magazine. The covers featured an additional spot colour, while the interior maintained a strong DIY spirit. Graphic design was one of the most innovative aspects of the project. Each article possessed its own visual identity, developed through typographic experimentation, collage techniques, and references to the visual arts. Layouts were created entirely by hand using transfer lettering, markers, and cut-out photographs. Before the advent of “desktop publishing”, every page retained visible traces of its creative process: imperfections, overlaps, and manual interventions became integral elements of the magazine’s aesthetic.

The artistic background of several members of the editorial staff played a crucial role in shaping this visual sensibility. Their interest in graphic design, painting, and design broadened the publication’s scope beyond a strictly punk imagination, transforming it into a space for reflection on developments in contemporary art and visual communication. Distribution also followed an independent model. Copies were personally delivered to major Italian cities and sold on consignment through specialist bookstores, record shops, and alternative cultural venues. Over time, an informal network of collaborators developed in Rome, Milan, and Turin, while some copies also reached the United Kingdom through the postal exchange circuits that characterized the pre-Internet fanzine scene. The magazine’s contents reflected the wide-ranging interests of its editors. Alongside music reviews and interviews, readers could find articles on theatre, design, visual arts, and emerging cultural trends. This multidisciplinary approach mirrored a scene in which musicians, graphic designers, artists, and performers frequently shared spaces, experiences, and creative trajectories.

The Trance experience unfolded during a period of profound transformation in youth culture. Alongside punk and post-punk emerged new sensibilities connected to club culture, house music, and the visual languages of fashion. Some members of the editorial collective subsequently pursued professional careers in graphic design for clubs and discotheques, witnessing first-hand the transition from a handcrafted aesthetic to increasingly professionalized forms of visual communication. Despite its brief publishing history, Trance now occupies a significant place within the history of Italian independent publishing. It stands as testimony to a period in which underground cultural production relied on informal networks, postal exchanges, and self-publishing practices that demanded technical skills, financial commitment, and strong personal motivation. Its story documents not only the alternative music scene of Pisa but also the broader transition from an analogue and handmade culture to the early digital experiments that would profoundly transform the production and circulation of cultural content in the years that followed.

To Die For: Posters Against Homophobic Violence

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:40:24 +0000

These posters examine how graphic design became a form of activism in response to the 1992 hate crime murder of Allen R. Schindler, a gay U.S. Navy sailor. Designers Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett created a pair of public posters that honoured Schindler’s life while exposing the violence and prejudice that led to his death. The posters were independently installed throughout New York City, demonstrating how design can challenge censorship and provoke public dialogue.

BOAC VC10

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 15:59:40 +0000

This striking 1960s advertisement for British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) showcases the British-built VC10, one of the most distinctive jet airliners of its era. The photograph emphasises the aircraft's elegant and instantly recognisable design, with its four rear-mounted engines and imposing T-tail captured in a dynamic perspective.

Designed for long-range routes and exceptional performance, the VC10 became renowned for its speed and reliability. In 1979, a VC10 achieved the fastest transatlantic crossing by a subsonic jet airliner, completing the journey in just 5 hours and 1 minute. The record stood for an impressive 41 years until February 2020, when a British Airways Boeing 747 crossed the Atlantic in 4 hours and 56 minutes, aided by the powerful winds of Storm Ciara. Only the supersonic Concorde was significantly faster, with a crossing time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds.

Although relatively few VC10s were produced, the aircraft enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Serving with BOAC and several other airlines from the 1960s until 1981, it earned a reputation as one of Britain's finest commercial aircraft and remains an enduring icon of the jet age.