Nigel Ball

The Design Writing Prize 2026 is now open for applications! The award invites scholars, researchers, critics, practitioners and educators, both from within the Society and the vibrant community beyond, to champion the cause of critical debate in design through writing. Find out more: buff.ly/OtO34nj

Vice-chancellor calls for review into student loans for those without A-levels Adam Tickell, of University of Birmingham, says money is lent to people who ‘are not really capable of graduating’

Classist, anti-neurodivergent, elitist nonsense.

I’ve written something for the latest issue of Eye, also on their website:

www.eyemagazine.com/opinion/arti...

@eyemagazine.bsky.social

A 10p masterpiece! The golden age of crisp packet design, from Chipsticks to Frazzles to Hedgehogs Aliens drawn by a 2000AD artist, graphics echoing the Dark Side of the Moon cover, Dennis the Menace fronting bacon and baked bean flavour … we pop open a new 140-page celebration of the weirdest, wil...

Crunchy #heritagehospitality and #branding www.theguardian.com/artanddesign... Crisp packet design book

This 👇

Sleeve designed by Barney Bubbles

Ban on TV junk food advertising before 9pm comes into force in UK Watchdog will also monitor online ban for high fat and sugar products as part of wider effort to tackle childhood obesity

Long time come

A silhouette of trees and telegraph pole against a red sunrise

First light, 01.01.2026

A magazine cover featuring teenagers on a heart shaped pink climbing frame, with the text Women and Girls above them, and the magazine title, Urban Deign in a black circle.

Good to see Ipswich mentioned so much in the Winter issue of Urban Design, after the Urban Design Group conference 2025 at Dance East and Suffolk Design Festival held at the University of Suffolk this year.

Campaigner turned down MBE over ‘scapegoating’ of people with disabilities Exclusive: In letter declining proposed award, Tressa Burke, CEO of Glasgow Disability Alliance, accused government of ‘fuelling hatred’

👏👏👏👏👏👏

😳

‘Don’t be disheartened by mistakes’: 10 lessons my artist father taught me David Gentleman’s brilliant career spans eight decades, from watercolour painting to tube station murals to drawing the Tottenham riots. Here his daughter, the Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman, di...

Yes x10

Humans made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests Groundbreaking find makes compelling case that humans were lighting fires much earlier than originally believed

Suffolk, we are the fire starters!

Meeting Bob Linney I remember Paul Gorman saying of Barney Bubbles, just shortly after his book about the graphic designer, Reasons To Be Cheerful, had been published, that he was the ‘gift that keeps on giving…

New blog post: Meeting Bob Linney

Rebel nuns who busted out of Austrian care home win reprieve – if they stay off social media Trio given leave to stay in their abandoned convent near Salzburg until further notice, church officials say

Rebel nuns ✊

This all seems perfectly reasonable to me. I second your proposals.

👏👏👏👏👏👏 @chrisgpackham.bsky.social on the Today programme this morning

This 👇

A post by Zarah Sultana of 'Your Party', that uses a generated image with the words 'Your Party, County Durham Launch', surrounded by nine simple, flat images of images in silhouette with single colour backgrounds, presumably intended to represent Durham, four of which are a man with a weirdly long pick-axe, one is a building, two are gantries of some kind – for a coal mine? – and one is some kind of floating lamp. I will expand on this in the thread.

Okay, I can't let this one go. I live in Ireland, not the UK, but the use of this image by a supposedly socialist party is so stupid and offensive, I'm going to get stuck in.

Let me explain to you why any experienced illustrator/designer could have stopped you making so many miserable mistakes. 1/

‘We never had much fun – we were angry’: Eve Libertine on life with anarcho-punk pioneers Crass Accused of obscenity and sued by police and Tory MPs, Libertine outraged the establishment as part of Crass. Now she’s back – and she hasn’t mellowed with age

Still angry

Same

If there is such a thing as a minimum wage, then there should be such a thing as a maximum wage as well!

Who gets to be an artist? Are you from a professional family, went to private school, have a postgraduate degree, and live in London with a load of cash in the bank?

'Are you from a professional family, went to private school, have a postgraduate degree, and live in London with a load of cash in the bank?
If so, congrats – you’re three times more likely to become an artist than anyone else.' 1/2

Two screens with images of cranes and water. In front, someone sits on a red sofa, and a stain glass window can be seen above the screens in the background.

Among other things, we saw Mark Požlep’s Leviathan—SPILL’s flagship commission for 2025—an audio-visual installation in Ipswich’s St Clement’s Church. A moving work about the Suffolk coast, the fishing industry, and geopolitical forces that have brought incalculable social and environmental change.

SPILL Festival | Ipswich Arts Festival SPILL Festival is an internationally renowned celebration of arts, culture, and performance in Ipswich. Experience year-round events, experimental theatre, live art, and creative projects at the Think...

Heading out to catch some SPILL Festival today. Come along if you are in the area.

Stolen Louvre jewellery found safe and sound inside the British museum

wwn Waterford Whispers News & 17h • Louvre Thieves Given Immunity After Confirming Jewels Stolen For Purpose Of Training Al Software POLICE ATIUNAL waterfordwhispersnews.com Louvre Thieves Given Immunity After Confirming Jewels Stolen For Purpose Of Training Al Softw...

Ah, the two 2020s theft joke templates side by side.

Too much pressure: 2 Tone and typography My introduction to graphic design was staring up at a Beatles poster on my bedroom wall aged 8, wondering why the vertical stroke of the T dropped below the baseline of the band’s name. I had no un…

Too much pressure: 2 Tone and typography.