Visual Movements
A publication on the philosophy of how things look.
Every visual movement is a claim about how the world should be seen. Most of those claims have outlived their authors and entered the daily visual vocabulary without attribution — we use Bauhaus grammar to design a checkout flow, we borrow Constructivist diagonals for a sports brand, we frame an Instagram photo with composition rules invented by Japanese woodblock printmakers in the eighteenth century.
This publication maps those claims. It traces lineages forward and backward through 150 years of design and visual culture, draws the connections between movements that designers know but rarely articulate, and treats both Western and non-Western traditions as serious sources.
It grows in additions, not in one sitting. New essays are added periodically; existing essays are deepened. Currently 36 of 49 planned movements are written.