Rick Poynor is a writer, critic, lecturer and curator, specialising in design, media and visual culture. He founded Eye, co-founded Design Observer, and contributes columns to Eye and Print. His latest book is Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design.

Recent Essay

The Irresistible Attraction of Self Storage

Self storage centers are places of private and public fascination and I always knew that one day I would succumb.
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Recent Book

Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Rick Poynor
Moravian Gallery, 2010
More books by Rick Poynor >>

Design Observer Essays

DESIGN OBSERVER ESSAY ARCHIVE

03.05.13: On My Shelf: Fin de Copenhague
02.22.13: The Experiential Thrill of Driving in Films
02.15.13: A Dictionary of Surrealism and the Graphic Image
01.26.13: Herbert Spencer and The Book of Numbers
01.15.13: Socialism and Modernity: A Hidden History
01.03.13: On My Screen: Shooting the Past
12.09.12: Dom Sylvester Houédard's Cosmic Typewriter
11.30.12: Herbert Spencer and the Decisive Detail
11.18.12: Robert Brownjohn: Photos at Street Level
10.23.12: True Stories: A Film about People Like Us
10.14.12: The Art of Punk and the Punk Aesthetic
10.05.12: The Museum of Communicating Objects
09.24.12: Demonstrations, Democracy and Design
09.15.12: Why the Activist Poster is Here to Stay
09.09.12: John Stezaker: Images from a Lost World
09.02.12: It's Smart to Use a Crash Test Dummy
08.26.12: The Never-ending Struggle against Clutter
08.19.12: On My Shelf: André Breton's Nadja
08.09.12: Sending Signals about Political Graphics
07.30.12: Pierre Faucheux and Le Livre de Poche
07.06.12: Design a Cover for Eno's Music for Films
06.28.12: What Does Critical Writing Look Like?
06.18.12: Updating the Maps of Graphic Design History
06.07.12: On My Shelf: A History of the Machine
05.31.12: From the Archive: Graphic Metallica
05.23.12: Jan van Toorn: The World in a Calendar
05.15.12: The Strange Afterlife of Common Objects
05.02.12: Career Prospects in the Pain Business
04.26.12: Studio Culture: The Materialism of Matter
04.19.12: Phil Sayer, Designer of Photo-Portraits
04.13.12: The Closed Shop of Design Academia
04.06.12: The Enduring Influence of Richard Hollis
03.29.12: On Display: Museum of Broken Relationships
03.23.12: The Covers of J.G. Ballard's Crash: An Update
03.09.12: Typographic Stories of the City Streets
03.02.12: Motif Magazine: The World Made Visible
02.26.12: John McHale and the Expendable Ikon
02.18.12: The Unspeakable Pleasure of Ruins
02.08.12: On My Shelf: A Classic by Berger and Mohr
01.31.12: The Evil Genius of David Shrigley
01.27.12: In Response to An Anatomy of Uncriticism
01.19.12: Ernst Haas and the Color Underground
01.09.12: Read All That? You Must be Kidding Me
01.01.12: On My Shelf: Jean-Luc Godard Anthologized
12.23.11: How We Learned to Live with Zombies
12.16.11: Saul Leiter and the Typographic Fragment
12.11.11: Another Design Voice Falls Silent
12.01.11: Man in a Bowler: Illustration after Magritte
11.25.11: How to Cover an Impossible Book
11.17.11: The Infinite Warehouse of Images
11.10.11: Literary Horror from the Chapman Brothers
11.03.11: This Post has Been Declared a Link-free Zone
10.28.11: On My Shelf: Continuum's 33 1/3 Series
10.22.11: On Display: The Kirkland Museum
10.16.11: Did We Ever Stop Being Postmodern?
09.29.11: Should We Look at Corrosive Images?
09.22.11: Jan Svankmajer and the Graphic Uncanny
09.15.11: Richard Hamilton, the Great Decipherer
09.09.11: A Swedish Perspective on Critical Practice
09.01.11: Chris Foss and the Technological Sublime
08.25.11: On My Shelf: The Metallization of a Dream
08.17.11: Funerary Portraits: Snapshots in Stone
08.09.11: From the Archive: Raging Bull
08.02.11: From the Archive: Down with Innovation
07.27.11: Andrzej Klimowski: Transmitting the Image
07.21.11: J.G. Ballard's Terminal Documents
07.13.11: The House That Design Journalism Built
07.06.11: The Dictionary as Art Concept
06.28.11: Speculative Fiction, Speculative Design
06.22.11: On the Threshold of Sebald's Room
06.14.11: Lost Inside the Collector's Cabinet
06.06.11: Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?
06.01.11: On My Shelf: Stefan Lorant's Lilliput
05.26.11: A Dream World Made by Machines
05.19.11: Unearthly Powers: Surrealism and SF
05.10.11: Books Every Graphic Designer Should Read
05.07.11: Paul Stiff, the Reader's Champion
04.28.11: On My Screen: The Back of Beyond
04.21.11: Wim Wenders' Strange and Quiet Places
04.12.11: Stewart Mackinnon: Ruptured and Remade
04.07.11: Starowieyski's Graphic Universe of Excess
04.01.11: Wim Crouwel: The Ghost in the Machine
03.25.11: An Unknown Master of Poster Design
03.18.11: Slicing Open the Surrealist Eyeball
03.11.11: What Does J.G. Ballard Look Like? Part 2
03.04.11: The Secret History of the Edgelands
02.22.11: On My Shelf: Richard Neville's Playpower
02.15.11: Solitude in Dark Trees
02.10.11: A Journal with No Fear of Flying
02.04.11: What Does J.G. Ballard Look Like?
01.27.11: On My Shelf: Nairn's London
01.23.11: Discovered by Chance in a Paris Arcade
01.14.11: In Praise of the East European Film Poster
01.10.11: Out of the Studio: Graphic Design History and Visual Studies
01.07.11: How to Chew Gum while Walking
12.30.10: Surrealism in the Pre-School Years
12.21.10: W.G. Sebald: Writing with Pictures
12.17.10: Everything has Become Science Fiction
12.16.10: Agency or Studio? The Dutch Design Dilemma
12.10.10: The Impossibility of an Island
12.03.10: On My Screen: Bill Morrison's Decasia
12.01.10: Where Is Art Now?
11.22.10: Rethinking Conceptual Type Design
11.11.10: What Does H. P. Lovecraft Look Like?
11.05.10: Adventures in the Image World
11.05.10: Danzig Baldaev’s Prison House of Flesh
11.05.10: Design Writing from Down Under
11.05.10: On My Shelf: Surrealism Permanent Revelation
11.05.10: An App for the Self-Replacing Book
12.18.08: Barney Bubbles: Optics and Semantics
06.16.08: We Found It at the Movies: Part I
06.16.08: We Found It at the Movies: Part II
06.02.08: A Critical View of Graphic Design History
02.17.08: Lost America: The Flamingo Motor Hotel
04.03.07: Dancing to the Sound in Your Head
11.10.05: Emigre: An Ending
09.25.05: Where Are the Design Critics?
09.19.05: The Guardian's New European Look
08.20.05: Sublime Little Tubes of Destruction
07.27.05: Vladimir's House and Garden of Earthly Delights
07.01.05: We Are All Editors Now. Or Are We?
06.16.05: In Memoriam: My Manual Typewriter
06.03.05: Mevis and Van Deursen: Rueful Recollections, Recycled Design
05.20.05: But Darling of Course it's Normal: The Post-Punk Record Sleeve
05.05.05: Getting Louder: Chinese Design on the March
04.24.05: Eduardo Paolozzi, 20th Century Image-Maker
04.05.05: Wisconsin Death Trip
03.21.05: Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot
03.13.05: Why Architects Give Me the Willies
02.12.05: The Ikea Riot: Unsatisfied Excess?
01.09.05: The I.D. Forty: What Are Lists For?
11.11.04: Who's In and Who's Out of the Dictionary
10.29.04: Fear and Loathing at the Design Museum
07.31.04: Britain and America: United in Idiocy
07.03.04: Where are the Design Intellectuals?
06.06.04: Modernising MoMA: Design on Display
04.23.04: Critics and Their Purpose
04.17.04: Theory with a Small "t"
04.09.04: How to Say What You Mean
04.03.04: The Two Cultures of Design
03.21.04: Jan van Toorn: Arguing with Visual Means
02.28.04: Bruce Mau: The Aura of Power
02.11.04: Neville Brody Revisited
01.11.04: Behind the Billboard
12.21.03: Notes on Experimental Jetset
12.11.03: Adbusters in Anarchy
12.02.03: Remember Picelj
11.24.03: Missing Sleeve Notes
11.16.03: Unnecessary Revival
11.09.03: Those Inward-looking Europeans
11.02.03: It's a Man's World