Ian Lynam Design is a Tokyo design studio operating at the intersection of graphic design, design education and design research. We specialize in identity, cultural research and typography. We make stuff for forward-thinking humans.

Wordshape

Wordshape is our hybrid type foundry, publishing entity, distributor of the Japanese graphic design magazine IDEA /アイデア and related Japanese graphic design books, and software company.

Fracture: Japanese Graphic Design 1875–1975

The definitive book about Japanese graphic design history.

Cannibals. by Ian Lynam - a book on graphic design

Cannibals.

A handbook of dubious exercises, tips, and rants about becoming a designer who teaches... (But just as much a handbook for designers who happen to be being taught.)

Select Clients

“Eschewing the shortsighted practical nature of much graphic design-oriented writing, Lynam focuses on demythologizing contemporary graphic design – opening up a new horizon of discourse both East and West.”

– Kiyonori Muroga

Idea Magazine

What We Do