Designer as Publisher / Researcher / Change Maker / Performer / Artist

A fascinating exploration of contemporary designers who are redefining what it means to be a graphic designer, offering a vibrant celebration and an inspirational reimagining of the medium for students, professionals, and educators in the field.

A fascinating exploration of contemporary designers who are redefining what it means to be a graphic designer, offering a vibrant celebration and an inspirational reimagining of the medium for students, professionals, and educators in the field.

Drawing from his popular podcast Scratching the Surface, Jarrett Fuller profiles more than 20 graphic designers who have taken the skills acquired through education and on-the-job experience to create new types of practices, working outside traditional commercial contexts. Reimagine what graphic design can mean when viewed through the lens of publisher, programmer, activist, artist, and more. Each chapter features a series of short profiles, an in-depth interview, and a visual exploration of one designer’s work.

Including both emerging and midcareer practitioners from around the world, Graphic Designers After Graphic Design showcases a wide variety of innovative creatives who have embraced graphic design’s blurry edges. In both text and images, we meet designers such as:

• Nina Paim, who runs Bikini Books, a small publishing platform for feminist thought.
• Tiger Dingsun, whose interest in critical theory and psychoanalysis shapes his work in design, writing, and programming.
• Benedetta Crippa, whose research into visual sustainability is changing how we might think in the face of the climate crisis.
• Sarah Saleh, who sees her work as collage, whether it’s a video piece, a live DJ set, or text-based images.
• Na Kim, whose large-scale installations turn the tables on how the principles of design are executed.
• And many more.

A foreword by renowned graphic designer, curator, and educator Ellen Lupton shows how the tools, media, and mindsets of graphic design have laid the foundation for persisting beyond “a profession forever threatening to expire . doing work in the invisible spaces between form and content, art and commerce, layout and editing.”