A Co-Program for Graphic Design

This volume expands David Reinfurt’s uniquely pragmatic and experimental approach to pedagogy into a collaborative project that weaves together a multiplicity of voices to present a polyphonic approach to design history and teaching. Three of Reinfurt’s new Princeton University graphic design courses—C-i-r-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n, M-u-l-t-p-l-i-c-i-t-y and R-e-s-e-a-r-c-h—developed explicitly in the context of remote teaching and in light of urgent realignments around whose stories get told and who does the telling, are presented in this follow-up to A *New* Program for Graphic Design (Inventory Press/D.A.P., 2018). C-i-r-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n examines the distribution networks for graphic design including electronic and conventional means. M-u-l-t-p-l-i-c-i-t-y, taught with mathematics professor Philip Ording, explores graphic design from the perspective of topology and topology through the practice of graphic design. R-e-s-e-a-r-c-h is an advanced graphic design class which cultivates an exploratory and expansive design process and investigates what the term "design research" has meant at different points in design history.

From these separate angles comes a collaborative and cooperative way of telling and teaching design history, taking on subjects from the Detroit Printing Co-op, Corita Kent and Charles and Ray Eames, to Giuseppe Peano, Marshall McLuhan, Sylvia Harris and Virgil Abloh. Through a series of in-depth historical case studies and assignments that progressively build in complexity, the book serves as a practical guide to visually understanding the history—and shaping the future—of our designed world.

David Reinfurt is an independent graphic designer and writer based in New York City. He worked as an interaction designer at IDEO from 1995 to 1997, where he was the lead designer for the MTA Metrocard vending machine interface. In 2000, Reinfurt formed the graphic design practice O-R-G inc., followed by Dexter Sinister in 2006 and the Serving Library in 2012. He has taught at Princeton University since 2010.