Visible Language (1967–)

Visible Language is the oldest peer–reviewed design journal, first published in 1967. For it’s first four years, it was published under the title The Journal of Typographic Research.

The primary tenet of its foundation was that reading and writing together form a new, separate, and autonomous language system. From its initial focus on typography, it has evolved with the changing landscape of communication design to embrace interdisciplinary relationships with anthropology, art, design, education, English and linguistics. The journal has covered subjects such as concrete poetry, artists’ books, Fluxus, painted text, textual criticism, the abstraction of symbols, articulatory synthesis and text, and the evolution of the page from print to on-screen display.

Visible Language was founded by Merald Wrolstad who served as editor and publisher until 1987. The following 26 years (1987-2012) it was edited by Sharon Poggenpohl of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, with administrative offices at the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently, it is edited by Mike Zender of the University of Cincinnati, which publishes and provides administrative offices for the journal.

Edited by Merald E. Wrolstad (1-80), Sharon Poggenpohl (81-155), Mike Zender (156-)
Publisher Merald E. Wrolstad (1-80), Sharon Poggenpohl (81-155), University of Cincinatti (156-)
ISSN 0022-2224
via Stéphanie Vilayphiou, via Natacha Roussel

Announcement about the journal going open access

PDFs of issues 1–157 (with abstracts in HTML, PDFs of some issues missing)

Special issues:
40 Spelling, ed. Richard L. Venezky
44 Barthes: Beyond the Empire of Signs, ed. Steven Ungar
45 The Interface of Reading and Listening, ed. Dominic W. Massaro
51 Behavioural Studies of the Handwriting Skill, ed. Alan M. Wing
52 Theory, Research, Experiment, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
57 Spatial Factors in Typography, ed. James Hartley
58-59 Visual Cues in Word Recognition and Reading, Part 2, ed. Keith Rayner
65 Calligraphy, ed. Gunnlaugur SE Briem
66 The Renascence of Die Hermeneute, ed. Charles Robert Kline, Jr.
70 Some Effects of Communications Medium on Visible Language, ed. Patricia Wright
71 Aspects of the Japanese Writing System, ed. Chris Seeley
72 Psychological Processes in Reading, ed. Dominic W. Massaro
73 ATyp1, ed. Charles Bigelow
74 Graphic Design Computer Graphics, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
76 The Book, Inside and Out, ed. Judith Preckshot
77 Pattern Poetry: A Symposium, ed. Dick Higgins
78 Promoting Plain English, ed. Erwin R. Steinberg
79 The Origins and Functions of Literacy, eds. David Olson & Derrick De Kerckove
81 Bi-Graphic Differences: Languages in Con(tact)(flict), ed. Richard Hodgson
83 Then and Now: Readers Learning to Write, ed. E. Jennifer Monaghan
84 The Avant-Garde and the Text, ed. Stephen C. Foster
85 Lipreading, ed. Ruth Campbell
86 Literacy Literacy, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
87 Instant Theory: Making Things Popular, ed. Craig Saper
88 The Printed Poem and the Reader, ed. Richard Bradford
89 Inscriptions in Paintings, ed. Claude Gandelman
95 The Artist’s Book: The Text and Its Rivals, ed. Renée Riese Hubert
97 Fluxus: A Conceptual Country, ed. Estera Milman
98 Diagrams as Tools for Worldmaking, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
99 Writing in Stereo: Bilingualism in the Text, ed. Richard Hodgson
101 Visual Poetry: An International Anthology, ed. Harry Polkinhorn
104-106 New Perspectives: Critical Histories of Graphic Design, Part 2, Part 3, ed. Andrew Blauvelt
107 The Luminous Object: Video Art/Video Theory, ed. Andrew Blauvelt and Herman Rapaport
108 Money!, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
110 New Media Poetry, ed. Eduardo Kac
119-120 Words in Space, Part 2, ed. Sharon Helmer Poggenpohl
123 Voicimage, ed. Enzo Minarelli
125 Limits of Language, Limits of Worlds, ed. Dietmar Winkler
127 An Annotated Design Research Bibliography, ed. Praima Chayutsahakij
131 Instruction and Provocation, or Relearning from Las Vegas, ed. Michael Golec
137 Fluxus and Legacy, ed. Ken Friedman
138 Fluxus After Fluxus, ed. Ken Friedman
143 Visual Metaphors in User Support, ed. Karel van der Waarde
144 After the Grave: Language and Materiality in Contemporary Art, ed. David Scott Armstrong
148-149 Communication Design Failures, Part 2, ed. Sharon Poggenpohl and Dietmar R. Winkler
150 Global Interaction in Design, ed. Audrey Grace Bennett
152 Punctuation, ed. Anne Toner
154 Envisioning a Future Design Education, ed. Sharon Poggenpohl

More on design research

René Spitz: The View Behind the Foreground: The Political History of the Ulm School of Design, 1953-1968 (2002) [EN, DE]

“The Ulm School of Design (HfG) has a reputation as the place which, after the Bauhaus, has had the most lasting influence not only on the design of industrially manufactured goods and of services but also on designer training. As a private institution the HfG was different from other contemporary design-focused training centers in that its goal was design based on the humanities and natural sciences, rather than traditional design, whose approach is one that relies on artistic intuition.

At the HfG, designers were trained, design took shape, theories of design were elaborated, and methods of design developed. In speaking of the instruction method used at the HfG and the way designers teamed up with technicians and business people, the terms “Ulm model” or “Ulm concept” are used. But the tangible results of work at the HfG – product and information design – have also set a trend: They are said to have a special “Ulm style”.” (from the back cover)

Publisher Axel Menges, Stuttgart, 2002
ISBN 3932565177, 9783932565175
462 pages

Review: Shantel Blakely (2003).

Publisher
WorldCat (EN)

HfG Ulm: The View Behind the Foreground (English, 87 MB, updated on 2019-2-25)
HfG Ulm. Ein Blick hinter den Vordergrund (German, 82 MB, updated on 2019-2-25)

Willard Cope Brinton: Graphic Presentation (1939)

A classic in information visualization.

Expanded edition of the title Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York Times
Publisher: Brinton Associates, New York City, 1939

via chartporn.org (includes stills and a commentary)

PDF (PDF)
Archive.org (multiple formats)
Archive.org (1914 edition)
stills (better resolution, by Michael Stoll)