Graphic Design Is (…) Not Innocent questions ingrained approaches, values and assumptions of graphic design in globalized societies. The publication aims to initiate a dialogue between designers, scholars, critics and commissioners, who investigate responsibilities, potentials, politics, limits and risks of designing visual communication. How innocent is graphic design? Whom is it addressing, whom is it in/excluding? What does it bring about? When defining the role and impact of visual communication, what future questions lie ahead?

Graphic Design Is (…) Not Innocent combines case studies and academic reflections, trying to sketch a common ground for basic research into the parameters and value systems of graphic design. It is a road trip between various possible conceptual challenges and praxis. It is a temporal inventory, without the claim of completeness. It is a question mark, as well as an exclamation mark. And it wants to stimulate critical thinking in graphic design.

Editor: Ingo Offermanns

Assistant editors: Dokho Shin & Sam Kim

Contributors: Karo Akpokiere, Christian Bauer, David Bennewith, Friedrich von Borries, Clémentine Deliss, Sandra Doeller, Daniel Martin Feige, Feminist Internet, Annette Geiger, Matthias Görlich, Anna Lena von Helldorff, Martin Ludwig Hofmann, Jianping He, Kay Jun, Anoushka Khandwala, Francisco Laranjo, Degeng Li, Eva Linhart, Madoka Nishi, Ingo Offermanns, Offshore, Sophia Prinz, Konrad Renner (Knoth  & Renner), Conor Rigby (Feminist Internet), Isabel Seiffert (Offshore), In-ah Shin (Feminist Designer Social Club), Pierre Smolarski, Markus Weisbeck 

Design: Ingo Offermanns

Summer 2022, Valiz in collaboration with Hamburg University of Fine Arts | Pb | 288 pp. | H23,5 - W14,5 cm | English | ISBN 978-94-92095-90-9