An online library of English translations of key selected writings on contemporary art in Japan
“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 second installment of publications from Corinthians Press!
A new Ghost.io website for W. David Marx's upcoming book.
A new international e-commerce website for the Japanese tenugui maker.
“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.”
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 new 130-page bilingual English/Japanese book on pre-WW2 design history.
“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.”
An exhibition of graphic designers who write, research, teach, and practice criticism.
A new website design for an exterior design firm and product manufacturer.
“Ian is the best to work with. He went above and beyond what I needed with my project. Ian Lynam has really good eyes – the kind of eyeballs that can tell you just what you need for the right sparks to fly everywhere, including my and your clients eyeballs.”
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 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.”
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.
“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!”
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.
“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.”
A brand new 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.
“Ian Lynam’s fine simplicity and appreciation for white space draws the eye and the heart where it needs to go. His design work is striking because it avoids the most common trap of being gaudy or needing attention. It simply does what it sets out to do.”
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 new zine about how to approach design critique from cultural and critical perspectives.
“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!”
Collateral design for VCFA's MFA in Graphic Design Program
Branding, positioning, marketing & identity initiatives for Vermont College of Fine Arts
“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.”
A new 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 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.”
A qualitative design research project commissioned by Adobe.
A new 112-page booklet about overcoming “Creative Constipation™.”
Ian Lynam is faculty at Temple University’s NASAD-accredited Japan Campus.
“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.”
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.
We designed the identity for Canard, Portland's latest culinary phenomenon.
“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.”
Biwa is a new straight-sided family of formally nuanced grotesk typefaces for text typesetting and display work for both print and screen.
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.)
“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 new series of installations spanning sound, found objects, narrative, and type design.
99+1 is a new book and responsive website for the Japanese National Tourism Organization.
We worked to define the identity of craft sake brand Kurokura.
“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.”
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.
We designed the branding, signage and interior design for Temple University Japan's main building Azabu Hall.
“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.”
Curation, lecture, writing and editing for the legendary Czech series of exhibitions.
Interior graphics for software innovator Pivotal's Tokyo offices.
“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.”
An exhibition of writing, installation and sound in Tokyo.
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.
“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.”
Identity for Space Academy, an event space in Christchurch, New Zealand.
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.
“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!”
Type design for the North American supermarket chain.
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.
“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 interior graphic design scheme for Google's Tokyo offices, as well as all wayfinding and signage.
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.
“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.”
Ian Lynam is Faculty and former 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.
“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.”
Type Sketcher is a trio of type design sketchbooks with modular grids for designing letterforms.
Identity and art direction for San Francisco swimwear company.
“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.”
Product line book and DVD for Nike’s Asia Pacific region.
Modular 3D type design for the board game Konexi.
“Ian Lynam’s fine simplicity and appreciation for white space draws the eye and the heart where it needs to go. His design work is striking because it avoids the most common trap of being gaudy or needing attention. It simply does what it sets out to do.”
We created the branding and design consulting for the latest wing of the Nagasaki amusement park.
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.
“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!”
Identity for the Wim Wenders and Kanji Nakajima film.
A set of 4 collaborative posters created with fellow designer Ed Fella.
We designed the identity for the iconic global design event series.
“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.”
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.
Identities for two of Portland, Oregon's iconic restaurants.
An exhibition of international expressive typography curated by Ian Lynam.
“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.”
Assisting the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art define their vision for curating a collection of Japanese Graphic Design.
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.
“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.”
Identity design for the San Francisco bag and accessory company Joshu + Vela.
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.
“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.”
We created a decorative, highly tactile print identity for the amazing Portland, Oregon photographer Bitna Chung.
Identity for the director behind the opening sequence for the TV show True Blood.
“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.”
Design and typography for the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival (PDX Film Fest). Portland, Oregon.
“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.”
LP, CD and promotional materials for Barsuk Records.
Music packaging design for Tokyo's Marxy
“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.”
2008 book on the cross-section of type design, graffiti, lettering, and sign painting.