“My first question was how might the concept of tracing become a conceptual thread that would formally tie the book together?” Aryn Beitz shares a behind-the-scenes look at the process that birthed the intricately layered, 448-page exhibition catalogue for Siah Armajani: Follow This Line, now on view at the Met Breuer.

How do you bootleg contemporary art? In designing the catalogue for Allen Ruppersberg: Intellectual Property 1968–2018, Ben Schwartz started with the exhibition’s title, which taps into the theme of copyright that spans the artist’s 50-year oeuvre. Referencing pop cultural traces in the work—borrowed, copied, stolen, and subverted, he set out to create “a giant cultural bootleg filtered through a Ruppersbergian lens.”

A “warm system” means an organic organization of re-arrangable elements, in which subjectivity, affection, emotion, but mostly needs, rule. An exhibition or a book can be a warm system.

In 2015, the Walker Shop released Intangibles—a line of products and artworks with no physical form. Participating artists and designers included Martine Syms, Alec Soth, CFCF, and K-HOLE. Here author Marvin Lin responds to the collection, suggesting that we “rethink our bias toward physical objects and re-envision our aesthetics on a grander timeline, offering lateral pathways that cut through the level of tangibility and place us on new timescales altogether.”

Redefine your understanding of graphic design with the Insights Design Lecture Series, presenting four leading designers from around the world. The 2019 lineup features designer/brand consultant Forest Young, fashion and culture guru Mirko Borsche, prolific illustrator Bráulio Amado, and magazine expert Gail Bichler.

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the design department at the Walker Art Center.

Redefine your understanding of graphic design with the Insights Design Lecture Series, presenting four leading designers from around the country: interdisciplinary studio PLAYLAB, INC.; legendary feminist designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville; Nike’s chief marketing officer Greg Hoffman; and experimental print/digital publishing guru Paul Soulellis.

Our recent Superscript conference wasn’t a place where people came to firmly declare something. In fact, many of the speakers seemed more interested in a healthy deconstruction of the conference’s premise. But that didn’t mean that the speakers left without bestowing wisdom upon us, which we happily consumed and regurgitated as context-less bits of Twitter fodder.

The Avant Museology symposium explored artistic practices, sociopolitical contexts, and historical complexities associated with the contemporary museum. “We wanted to create an identity that would serve as a container for the questions posed—a system designed in anticipation of the discourse that the symposium would yield,” says designer Jas Stefanski.

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center.

From catalogue chapter headings inspired by jazz gig posters to the graphic identity for LOOP magazine, here’s a look at the designs for the Walker’s Jason Moran exhibition, created by 12:01—Office of Hassan Rahim.

Expand your understanding of graphic design with the Insights Design Lecture Series, presenting five leading designers from around the world. Dive into the thinking behind their work. The 2020 lineup features branding expert Leland Maschmeyer, LA multidisciplinarian Daniel DeSure, hyper-aesthete Hassan Rahim, magazine expert Veronica Ditting, and a special bonus lecture/movie from ethically-driven designer Ruben Pater.

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center.

Resident photographer Bobby Rogers introduces Walker Photo, a new series of dispatches from the museum’s in-house photo studio, with a look at recent projects, from floral-themed band portraits and performance documentation to lookbooks and in-gallery instructional photography.

Graphic designer Mark Owens gives an exposition of his approach to designing the exhibition catalogue for Question the Wall Itself, posing the question, “What is a design idea?”

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center.

“The hippie was and remains a highly mediated figure, one used rhetorically within this project as the same kind of empty signifier to which accreted many different agendas. Or, as the Diggers once said, the hippie was just another convenient “bag” for the “identity-hungry to climb in.” If our publication could illustrate both the hippie as utopic countercultural agent and the hippie as “devoted son of Mass Media,” we might begin to emulate a Hippie Modernism.

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center.

A visual post featuring related programming to the exhibition, through the lens of a highly fetishized print object.

Over seven decades, Merce Cunningham reshaped dance into a new kind of art form—one that embraced technology, the creative potential of chance, and a dedication to cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Take a look at some of the recent work we’ve produced here in the Design Department at the Walker Art Center.