Signal of the week

Heritage & nostalgia · 17 stories, +6 vs last week

Heritage & nostalgia: 17 stories in seven days, +6 on the week before.

The Trademark: A Graphic Summation of Individuality Logo Histories

Graphic Design In Europe, 1978 Logo Histories

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Core77A Modern Take on the Split-Rail Fence This is what's called a split-rail fence: The design is a classic example of more-work-up-front, less-work-later.

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Core77The (Partially) Hide-Away Urban Desk This Urban Desk is by UrbanNature, a space-saving furniture brand started by German industrial designer Jörg Brachmann.

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Core77An Alternate Take on Booklights Here's a peculiar device that, if the reviews are to be believed, a subset of book readers love: The AwesomePre , a portable book light designed by Seoul-based ID firm Bebop .

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Yanko DesignThe 5 Best EDC Designs of November 2026 The most interesting EDC upgrade here begins with something that already fits a pocket: a Zippo case.

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Logo Design LoveJulia Hey founder Verònica Fuerte said this about the project: “For Julia, a small neighbourhood bakery built around homemade food and genuine care, we wanted the identity to feel as handcrafted as…

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PRINTThe Daily Heller: Tsuris Got You Down? Don’t Be a Putz Note: Despite the polls and pundits predictions of a blue wave on Tuesday night, I’ve gone to sleep early, figuring what will be will be.

11.04

Yanko DesignPillowy Steel Furniture Without a Stitch of Upholstery The steel in Sarah Naghawi’s JAWF collection looks caught halfway between a box and a balloon. Surfaces bulge, dip, and crease, giving rigid metal the appearance of something you might squeeze.

11.04

DesignWantedIris Ceramica Group opens ICG Gallery Dubai with “Designing the Invisible” The new ICG Gallery Dubai brings Iris Ceramica Group’s ceramic materials and surface technologies into a showroom organised around architectural

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PAGE onlineWeihnachten ist da! Es ist soweit: Die ersten Weihnachtsspots sind da und das mit Comedy- und Hollywood-Stars, mit den unübertroffenen Muppets, cooler Fashion und, ganz wie es sich für Weihnachten gehört, mit…

11.04

発見, hakken: a finding. This is a record of what one designer notices in a week.

I grew up beside the Arakawa, in Adachi, and spent five years in a Ginza studio drawing identities for companies you have used without once thinking about them. That work teaches you to read a city as a page. A vending machine is set type. A rice bag is a packaging problem somebody solved in the eighties and nobody has improved on since. A good deal of the best design in Japan is like that: already in the street, unsigned, waiting to be looked at properly.

So this magazine watches the street as well as the feed. Around fifty sources come in through the day, ten of them Japanese, and what the world's studios are arguing about is counted and plotted so you can watch it move. Every third day I write about one thing I actually stood in front of.

What you get for a story is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the way out to the people who reported it. Never the article itself, and never the photograph as though it were ours. A story written in Japanese stays in Japanese here, headline and excerpt both, because that is how its author set it down.

Everything is also published in Japanese at hakkenmag.com/ja/.

— Ren Arakawa, Tokyo

One letter a week, starting soon.

Signal of the week

Heritage & nostalgia: 17 stories in seven days, +6 on the week before.

The Trademark: A Graphic Summation of Individuality Logo Histories

Graphic Design In Europe, 1978 Logo Histories

Latest

TypewolfDaylight

TypewolfHeart & Soil

TypewolfDirty Vine

Core77A Modern Take on the Split-Rail Fence This is what's called a split-rail fence: The design is a classic example of more-work-up-front, less-work-later.

Core77The (Partially) Hide-Away Urban Desk This Urban Desk is by UrbanNature, a space-saving furniture brand started by German industrial designer Jörg Brachmann.

Core77An Alternate Take on Booklights Here's a peculiar device that, if the reviews are to be believed, a subset of book readers love: The AwesomePre , a portable book light designed by Seoul-based ID firm Bebop .

Yanko DesignThe 5 Best EDC Designs of November 2026 The most interesting EDC upgrade here begins with something that already fits a pocket: a Zippo case.

Logo Design LoveJulia Hey founder Verònica Fuerte said this about the project: “For Julia, a small neighbourhood bakery built around homemade food and genuine care, we wanted the identity to feel as handcrafted as…

PRINTThe Daily Heller: Tsuris Got You Down? Don’t Be a Putz Note: Despite the polls and pundits predictions of a blue wave on Tuesday night, I’ve gone to sleep early, figuring what will be will be.

Yanko DesignPillowy Steel Furniture Without a Stitch of Upholstery The steel in Sarah Naghawi’s JAWF collection looks caught halfway between a box and a balloon. Surfaces bulge, dip, and crease, giving rigid metal the appearance of something you might squeeze.

DesignWantedIris Ceramica Group opens ICG Gallery Dubai with “Designing the Invisible” The new ICG Gallery Dubai brings Iris Ceramica Group’s ceramic materials and surface technologies into a showroom organised around architectural

PAGE onlineWeihnachten ist da! Es ist soweit: Die ersten Weihnachtsspots sind da und das mit Comedy- und Hollywood-Stars, mit den unübertroffenen Muppets, cooler Fashion und, ganz wie es sich für Weihnachten gehört, mit…