The definitive book about Japanese graphic design history.
Art direction for W. David Marx and Roni Xu's book about the remnants of the Shōwa era.
“Ian has the design skills I wish I had. His consistently creative designs come from an informed mind and relentless work ethic. I love working with him.”
A design history feature for Idea!
A collection of essays about design.
Ten years after its initial release, we’ve debuted Vaud Pro, our completely redrawn and reengineered version of our type family Vaud.
“Working with Ian Lynam offers unparalleled creativity and client focus. Whether designing for a global search company or a university garden institution, Ian knows how to uncover clients’ often unstated needs, and then design something unique and compelling. Ian is a maker, an educator, and an inspiring person to work with.”
Ruth's Recipe, a custom display typeface for the originators of the chocolate chip cookie
“Ian is an empire, a fanfare, a circus.
While most designers are accomplished at walking and chewing gum—the equivalent in graphic design terms of InDesign mastery while thinking conceptually—Ian does backflips of writing and publishing, walks the tightrope of research, and performs the acrobatics of teaching, all while stilt-walking an expansive terrain of graphic design practice… and all this while adeptly juggling platters of diverse knowledge that include history, theory, philosophy, humanities, and the gamut of pop culture.
But most of all Ian is accomplished at generously sharing himself and his many gifts with his whole heart. And this is why, simply, we love him.”
An overview of the career of the late musician, designer, illustrator and artist Rick Froberg of the bands Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Pitchfork, and Obits.
LP. CD, and cassette tape design for musician James Day Leavitt
Identities for twin businesses Goldrush Computing and Goldrush Studios
“Joyfully and skillfully straddling the line between creator and critic, theorist and practitioner, formalist and rebel, American and expatriate, serious analyst and humorous deconstructor, Ian Lynam always brings a wholly original perspective to his writing on design. The insights are always fresh, and the stakes are always extremely high.”
A new retro typeface set that combines the BMX-inspired aesthetics of the 1980s!
Elpy is a friendly rounded sans serif 22-member workhorse family inspired by all things music!
“Ian instantly captivated the room when he came to speak with my design students at Portland State University. He was all of the elements that one would want in a presenter: thoughtful, funny, relevant, organized, passionate, articulate and relatable. Most of all, the entire room walked away with new knowledge. Score! PSU loves Ian!”
Corporate identity for collaborative software corporation.
Naming, Positioning, Corporate Identity, Copywriting, Website UI/UX/Dev/Build, Packaging & POP for CBD gelato brand
“Joyfully and skillfully straddling the line between creator and critic, theorist and practitioner, formalist and rebel, American and expatriate, serious analyst and humorous deconstructor, Ian Lynam always brings a wholly original perspective to his writing on design. The insights are always fresh, and the stakes are always extremely high.”
The definitive book on the history of posters at CalArts
“Ian instantly captivated the room when he came to speak with my design students at Portland State University. He was all of the elements that one would want in a presenter: thoughtful, funny, relevant, organized, passionate, articulate and relatable. Most of all, the entire room walked away with new knowledge. Score! PSU loves Ian!”
An online library of English translations of key selected writings on contemporary art in Japan
The second installment of publications from Corinthians Press!
“Ian is pragmatic and effective in creating beautiful cultural products, and a pleasure to work with. He found amazing nuggets of graphic design and typography in our corporate archives, and turned them into amazing contemporary assets. He’s comfortable doing things himself, as well as at finding relevant partners, and has consistently shown a great level of initiative.”
A new international e-commerce website for the Japanese tenugui maker.
“Lynam is a bitingly humorous writer – gifted with the intuition to give stories depth. This is no accident as he writes from experience – a reading pleasure!”
Our new Japanese/English dictionary for designers and artists!
Naming, branding, identity, and e-commerce for Portland's wine phenom!
Brand positioning, identity, messaging, website, and interior graphic design.
“Ian Lynam is a pleasure to work with. Always understanding of what you are trying to achieve and able to offer the sage advice of a creative designer. Reliable, timely, and effective in what he does. I would definitely recommend his services.”
A 130-page bilingual English/Japanese book on pre-WW2 design history.
“In all our collaborations, Ian has always brought a fresh perspective and boundless energy to the project. His encyclopedic knowledge of visual culture, ability to quickly work through multiple concepts, and deep Rolodex of talented friends, also give us the confidence to move beyond our first idea, towards a final product that will surprise and delight our clients.”
An exhibition of graphic designers who write, research, teach, and practice criticism.
A website design for an exterior design firm and product manufacturer.
“The best kept secret in Japan. Encyclopedic in his knowledge of typography and all things beautifully considered. There are few men in Tokyo — nay, the world — that care more about design and the creative process as does Ian Lynam. Oh, and he’s the nicest guy you’ll meet.”
A website for one of Japan's top craftspeople.
Custom type design for Valve's massively popular multiplayer game DOTA2.
We created a custom version of our popular typeface families Cern and Cern Display for financial technology company Plaid.
“Ian is an empire, a fanfare, a circus.
While most designers are accomplished at walking and chewing gum—the equivalent in graphic design terms of InDesign mastery while thinking conceptually—Ian does backflips of writing and publishing, walks the tightrope of research, and performs the acrobatics of teaching, all while stilt-walking an expansive terrain of graphic design practice… and all this while adeptly juggling platters of diverse knowledge that include history, theory, philosophy, humanities, and the gamut of pop culture.
But most of all Ian is accomplished at generously sharing himself and his many gifts with his whole heart. And this is why, simply, we love him.”
The Impossibility of Silence is a 200+ page paperback for creative folks interested in approaching writing about their vocation and culture.
Identity for Asano Dental Clinic in Kaminoge, Setagaya in Tokyo.
Branding and identity for AXES Partners, a multidisciplinary firm specializing in project management services throughout all of Japan.
“Lynam is a bitingly humorous writer – gifted with the intuition to give stories depth. This is no accident as he writes from experience – a reading pleasure!”
The Future of Tradition: brand-building for a Japanese footwear startup
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.
“Ian is everything I could ask for: a highly talented video creator, web designer, creative collaborator and consultant, all rolled into one guy with a great attitude! I’ve really enjoyed working together with Ian and applaud his stellar creativity, attention to detail, and flexible accommodation to tight timelines and collaborative revisions — thanks for the amazing work, and here’s to more!”
A 52-page booklet by Ian Lynam that examines notions of authenticity via design, consumption, and history.
We co-edited and co-curated Slanted #35, an issue wholly devoted to LA.
“Joyfully and skillfully straddling the line between creator and critic, theorist and practitioner, formalist and rebel, American and expatriate, serious analyst and humorous deconstructor, Ian Lynam always brings a wholly original perspective to his writing on design. The insights are always fresh, and the stakes are always extremely high.”
The debut print journal from Néojaponisme — 128 pages of new content about retro Tokyo past and present.
Corporate identity, signage, and interior design for TUJ in Sangenjaya.
A zine about how to approach design critique from cultural and critical perspectives.
“Working with Ian is a dream! He is able to take a few half-formed thoughts from our end and turn them into brilliant design that eloquently communicates the identity we aim to project. He has an amazing ability of knowing exactly what you need with only the slightest amount of information. He treats each project with the utmost attention and care and is always quick to respond to changes with an open and generous mind. We couldn’t imagine working with anyone else!”
Collateral design for VCFA's MFA in Graphic Design Program
Branding, positioning, marketing & identity initiatives for Vermont College of Fine Arts
“Ian is an honest, simply-brilliant, graphic designer with skills and talent in abundance with the flexibility to adapt to meet and exceed a client’s need and did so each time we worked with him. He is a pleasure to collaborate with I would recommend him to anyone with confidence.”
A 400-page book of design theory edited by Ian Lynam.
An 88-page booklet that examines thorny aspects of design, designers, and design history.
“Ian Lynam is a visionary and a thought leader in the field of design. It’s an honor to have him lead our graduate graphic design program.”
A qualitative design research project commissioned by Adobe.
A 112-page booklet about overcoming “Creative Constipation™.”
Ian Lynam is faculty at Temple University’s NASAD-accredited Japan Campus.
“Ian Lynam likes thinking about design as much as making it. Luckily for us, he also likes writing about it that much too. The payoff: he is amazing at all three.”
We have designed a wide range of custom typefaces for assorted companies—from display faces to text families.
We both edited and are featured in Slanted Magazine's latest issue devoted to graphic design in Tokyo.
“As an artist, publisher, writer and designer, Ian seems to have had more than nine lives, and frankly it’s hard to keep up! He doesn’t just bring technical skills, but a depth of cultural understanding from the ground up — low, high, pop, fringe — that is invaluable to his varied clients. While other designers skim the shiny surface of current trends, Ian drills down with a solid understanding of history and meaning of the motifs, letter forms, and images he utilizes.”
We designed the identity for Canard, Portland's latest culinary phenomenon.
A book about the design of Japanese character culture.
Biwa is a straight-sided family of formally nuanced grotesk typefaces for text typesetting and display work for both print and screen.
“Because Ian has the craft of design really down pat, he has moved on to other things like giving the client what they really want even if they don’t know what it is they want. This can not be understated, because as a designer myself I am looking to expand my projects with other peoples great ideas, and that takes having a farsighted partner like Ian. Besides actual graphics, Ian has helped steer Joshu+Vela branding, public image and even the naming of the company – for this I am grateful to have someone looking out for my best interests as well as his. I am continuing to count on Ian to steer my projects in a successful direction with all the twists and turns that come up.”
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.)
A series of installations spanning sound, found objects, narrative, and type design.
“Lynam is a bitingly humorous writer – gifted with the intuition to give stories depth. This is no accident as he writes from experience – a reading pleasure!”
99+1 is a book and responsive website for the Japanese National Tourism Organization.
We worked to define the identity of craft sake brand Kurokura.
Start Somewhere: A Handbook of Dubious Exercises, Tips and Rants About Becoming a Designer Who Writes is a zine to help designers grapple with generating their own content.
“Ian has the design skills I wish I had. His consistently creative designs come from an informed mind and relentless work ethic. I love working with him.”
We designed the branding, signage and interior design for Temple University Japan's main building Azabu Hall.
“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.”
Curation, lecture, writing and editing for the legendary Czech series of exhibitions.
Interior graphics for software innovator Pivotal's Tokyo offices.
An exhibition of writing, installation and sound in Tokyo.
“When it came time to announce Firefox’s adoption of the @font-face rule, we needed someone to create an integration demo that straddled both innovative code and a nuanced working knowledge of typography. Ian was the obvious choice- his knowledge of typography applied to print and screen helped create a piece of design that functioned as a working how-to demo, a critique of webfont deployment in its nascent stages and a compelling piece of writing.”
Editorial direction and book design for Portland artist Bwana Spoons' first monograph.
A hybrid exhibition and essay-as-website exploring the role of graphic designers and design criticism in the world market economy.
Identity for Space Academy, an event space in Christchurch, New Zealand.
“Ian Lynam created a unique consumer intelligence portal that doubles as our company homepage. The website has added value to Five by Fifty by enhancing our corporate identity and marketing strategy. We will continue to work with Ian because he takes time to understand our business, speaks to us about technological issues in language we understand, and adds business acumen on top of creativity to help us achieve our goals.”
Ian Lynam regularly writes, designs, and edits features for IDEA / アイデア, Japan's oldest and most innovative graphic design magazine.
Writing for Slanted, the inimitable German magazine on typography and visual culture.
Type design for the North American supermarket chain.
“Ian Lynam created a unique consumer intelligence portal that doubles as our company homepage. The website has added value to Five by Fifty by enhancing our corporate identity and marketing strategy. We will continue to work with Ian because he takes time to understand our business, speaks to us about technological issues in language we understand, and adds business acumen on top of creativity to help us achieve our goals.”
Holistic identity design for a public arts initiative.
Ian went and wrote a book about graphic design. 78,209 words about it, but who's counting? It has a die-cut paper slipcover, a fabric paper-backed inner slipcover, and split fountain printing.
We designed the interior graphic design scheme for Google's Tokyo offices, as well as all wayfinding and signage.
“Ian Lynam created a unique consumer intelligence portal that doubles as our company homepage. The website has added value to Five by Fifty by enhancing our corporate identity and marketing strategy. We will continue to work with Ian because he takes time to understand our business, speaks to us about technological issues in language we understand, and adds business acumen on top of creativity to help us achieve our goals.”
A custom bilingual Japanese/English website highlighting Typekit's Asian webfont support.
Identity and environmental design for a Basque restaurant in the Daikanyama district of Tokyo.
“Ian Lynam is a visionary and a thought leader in the field of design. It’s an honor to have him lead our graduate graphic design program.”
Ian Lynam is former faculty and Chair/Co-Chair of the MFA in Graphic Design Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Design and typography for Northwest Passage, a book and CD about independent music from Portland, Oregon.
Type Sketcher is a trio of type design sketchbooks with modular grids for designing letterforms.
“Ian Lynam is a visionary designer, forcing us to challenge our assumptions about what design is, and what it can do. He constantly invites us to imagine new modes of inquiry, and makes a case for design as a fundamental way of knowing, and communicating, the world around us.”
Identity and art direction for San Francisco swimwear company.
Product line book and DVD for Nike’s Asia Pacific region.
“As an artist, publisher, writer and designer, Ian seems to have had more than nine lives, and frankly it’s hard to keep up! He doesn’t just bring technical skills, but a depth of cultural understanding from the ground up — low, high, pop, fringe — that is invaluable to his varied clients. While other designers skim the shiny surface of current trends, Ian drills down with a solid understanding of history and meaning of the motifs, letter forms, and images he utilizes.”
Modular 3D type design for the board game Konexi.
We created the branding and design consulting for the latest wing of the Nagasaki amusement park.
“Ian Lynam likes thinking about design as much as making it. Luckily for us, he also likes writing about it that much too. The payoff: he is amazing at all three.”
We created the interior graphic design scheme for YouTube's Tokyo offices and creative studio.
We created the identity for Topsy, the Apple-acquired search engine for Twitter.
Identity for the Wim Wenders and Kanji Nakajima film.
“Ian is an empire, a fanfare, a circus.
While most designers are accomplished at walking and chewing gum—the equivalent in graphic design terms of InDesign mastery while thinking conceptually—Ian does backflips of writing and publishing, walks the tightrope of research, and performs the acrobatics of teaching, all while stilt-walking an expansive terrain of graphic design practice… and all this while adeptly juggling platters of diverse knowledge that include history, theory, philosophy, humanities, and the gamut of pop culture.
But most of all Ian is accomplished at generously sharing himself and his many gifts with his whole heart. And this is why, simply, we love him.”
A set of 4 collaborative posters created with fellow designer Ed Fella.
We designed the identity for the iconic global design event series.
We created the identity and advertising campaign for NASA and The Washington County Museum‘s 2012/2013 exhibition Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe.
“Ian instantly captivated the room when he came to speak with my design students at Portland State University. He was all of the elements that one would want in a presenter: thoughtful, funny, relevant, organized, passionate, articulate and relatable. Most of all, the entire room walked away with new knowledge. Score! PSU loves Ian!”
Identities for two of Portland, Oregon's iconic restaurants.
An exhibition of international expressive typography curated by Ian Lynam.
Assisting the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art define their vision for curating a collection of Japanese Graphic Design.
“In all our collaborations, Ian has always brought a fresh perspective and boundless energy to the project. His encyclopedic knowledge of visual culture, ability to quickly work through multiple concepts, and deep Rolodex of talented friends, also give us the confidence to move beyond our first idea, towards a final product that will surprise and delight our clients.”
Our plug-in for Adobe Illustrator which adds 13 new tools to Illustrator's tool palette.
A set of ten tour guides of the Kanto region, each by a prominent foreign member of the Tokyo community for Shibaura House.
Identity design for the San Francisco bag and accessory company Joshu + Vela.
“Ian has the design skills I wish I had. His consistently creative designs come from an informed mind and relentless work ethic. I love working with him.”
A 96-page feature about CalArts' Graphic Design Department for IDEA.
Identity is our ethos―the fundamental character of a culture, individual, business or community.
We created a decorative, highly tactile print identity for the amazing Portland, Oregon photographer Bitna Chung.
“Working with Ian is a dream! He is able to take a few half-formed thoughts from our end and turn them into brilliant design that eloquently communicates the identity we aim to project. He has an amazing ability of knowing exactly what you need with only the slightest amount of information. He treats each project with the utmost attention and care and is always quick to respond to changes with an open and generous mind. We couldn’t imagine working with anyone else!”
Identity for the director behind the opening sequence for the TV show True Blood.
“Ever find yourself drawn to an image or sucked into an design article based purely on the form or content, then finding out later- after you go back to read the credit line- that a friend actually busted it out? That’s Ian.”
Design and typography for the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival (PDX Film Fest). Portland, Oregon.
LP, CD and promotional materials for Barsuk Records.
“In all our collaborations, Ian has always brought a fresh perspective and boundless energy to the project. His encyclopedic knowledge of visual culture, ability to quickly work through multiple concepts, and deep Rolodex of talented friends, also give us the confidence to move beyond our first idea, towards a final product that will surprise and delight our clients.”
The very first specimen of fonts for the web!
Music packaging design for Tokyo's Marxy
“Ian is always the first person I go to when need design help. Besides being an aesthetic genius, he is unrelenting in his commitment to portraying the right image for my brands. Top all of that off with a heavy dose of flexibility and professionalism and you end up with not only first-class designs, but an overall experience that ends up feeling more like fun than work.”
2008 book on the cross-section of type design, graffiti, lettering, and sign painting.
“As an artist, publisher, writer and designer, Ian seems to have had more than nine lives, and frankly it’s hard to keep up! He doesn’t just bring technical skills, but a depth of cultural understanding from the ground up — low, high, pop, fringe — that is invaluable to his varied clients. While other designers skim the shiny surface of current trends, Ian drills down with a solid understanding of history and meaning of the motifs, letter forms, and images he utilizes.”