Readesign

Graphic design is creation, process, and function. Whether the works encompass graphics, identity, architectural thinking, products, digital experiences, exhibitions, or communication—they outline contextual readings, construct interpretation frameworks that impact perceptions and behaviors, and create networks of signs for interpretation. Readesign is a publication that explores the foundational role of text, information, graphic, and interface design in shaping and educating our perceptions, literacy, and experience of reading. It analyzes the intersections between graphic and exhibition design, mainstream and experimental publishing practices, and product and interface design to understand how perceptions are shaped—from books and websites to signage, identities, or exhibitions. Designed around in-depth interviews and articles, the platform provides specialized reviews and materials that explore the conceptual dimension of publishing and its power to shape, inform, and reform sociocultural discourses. Designers are invited to expand on their knowledge within and beyond their practice, showcasing powerful visions and ideas in the broader context of design as a social practice and a positive agent of change central to how we read and experience the world. 

Design, writing, and reading are inseparable. Good design always starts with writing and learning how to read. Readesign also investigates the mediatization of contemporary writing. More language is becoming public than ever before, as more people produce and consume language in public—and most interactions depend on written language. Furthermore, languages are increasingly understood as technologies, and societies develop versions of language technologies to mediate their expressions and relationships. But as contemporary public language becomes ever more fluid, overlaid, and reproducible—mediation processes, entities, and institutions hold increasing significative power. Worldwide, we face unprecedented levels of false or misleading information, propaganda, malinformation, and social media disinformation. Media literacy and understanding how design consolidates perceptions, thinking critically, fact-checking, interpreting, and evaluating information have become imperative to defending social values collectively. 

By interviewing leading design practitioners and critics, cultural theoreticians, publishers, and writers—Readesign is a platform providing detailed insights into visual methodologies and concepts, processual habits, and the fundamental transformations in how we produce, read, and perceive information in the 21st century. At the same time, the platform reflects on the politics of publishing, media dissemination, distribution, and circulation in the digital age to analyze the interconnections between communication design, systems of signification, and media as technical and expressive objects. It documents cultural differences, co-evolutions, generational attitudes, and new ideas that reshape our conceptions of communication. Structured alongside three main types of content—long-form interviews and profiles, long-form critical articles, and analytical reviews—Readesign helps a new generation of designers and readers to exchange opinions and perspectives, generate ideas and discover new inspirations, challenge assumptions and extract insights, and explore how design and reading reflect on evolutionary sociological, environmental, and technological landscapes.
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Readesign is a project currently in development and is expected to launch in 2023. Identity design developed in collaboration with Echo Branding © Stranger Projects OÜ, 2020—2023. Images © My Mind and Norbert Kowalczyk are used here only to illustrate the current design direction. Sample design of website homepage is work in progress © Stranger Projects OÜ, 2020-2023.