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

Iakov Chernikhov: Postroyenie shriftov (1958) [Russian]

A book on the history of Russian and Latin typography from the avant-garde architect Iakov Chernikhov.

Построение шрифтов [Constructing Fonts]
With N.A. Sobolev (Н.А. Соболев)
Published in Moscow, 1958
Reprinted by Architektura-S, Moscow, 2007
ISBN 5964700330
116 pages
via Arch-grafika.ru

PDF (68 MB, updated on 2015-11-10)

Kenneth Goldsmith: Theory (2015) [EN, FR]

“Theory offers an unprecedented reading of the contemporary world: 500 texts – from poems and musings to short stories – printed on 500 pages assembled in the form of a ream of paper. Curated by the author-poet, this collection maps out the various issues and trends in contemporary literature in a world currently being shaken up by everything online and digital, and calls for the reinvention of creative forms.”

Edition directed by Mathieu Cénac and David Desrimais
Publisher Jean Boîte, Paris, May 2015
ISBN 9782365680103 (EN)
500 pages

Publisher (EN)
Publisher (FR)

Theory (English, cover, inner side of wrapper, label)
Théorie (French, trans. Léa Faust, cover, label)