By Ian Lynam

A booklet about Things—Things we’ve designed, designed Things that we have inherited, and Things that are so woven into our societies and cultures that we cannot extricate Them.

The Thing is about the problematics of design, designers, and design history.

Lovingly offset printed and screen printed in a mix of three colors, The Thing mixes graphic design history, memoir, object studies, dismembered limbs, virgin tears, and blood sacrifice applied to some of the silkiest Japanese papers available.

Topics include Vikings; Netflix binge-watching as a metaphor for lived experience; problematic relationships with objects; earthquakes which became firestorms; which then claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people; Japanese graphic design history; picking locks; secrets behind the art of editing; nostalgia; guilt, and shame. 

Designed by Ian Lynam

Published by Wordshape, 2019

Softcover, 80 pages, 2-color offset with glow in the dark ink, 5.75 × 8.25 inches