by Evgenii Astapov
This website was created as part of Project 3 for Typography & Interaction Course at Parsons School of Design in 2025. It gathers three critical highly critical texts that challenge the the idea of neutrality, objectivity and ideological freedom of the design as a professional field.
The project explores how visual culture, authorship, and labor conditions shape what design is and what it pretends to be. Through typography, structure, and animated/interactive elements, the website highlights each author's critical positions and exposes their shared message: Design exists only within systems of power and interest.
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“What Design Can’t Do — Graphic Design Between Automation, Relativism, Élite and Cognitariat.” by Silvio Lorusso. February 27, 2017.
https://networkcultures.org/entreprecariat/what-design-cant-do/.
Silvio Lorusso in "What Design Can't Do" argues how contemporary design practice is shaped by automation, precarious labor, and the illusion of creative autonomy. -
“Against Neutrality.” Teju Cole, 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/against-neutrality.html
Teju Cole in "Against Neutrality" reveals how images — and by extension visual design — claim objectivity while quietly enforcing ideological narratives. -
“Fuck All.” Kenneth FitzGerald. May 23, 2016.
https://modesofcriticism.org/fuck-all/.
Kenneth FitzGerald in "Fuck All" dismantles the profession’s internal myths, showing how even its theories serve specific hierarchies, markets, and aspirational identities.
The three readings converge on a single point:
Design is never neutral.
Each text reveals a different mechanism through which power shapes design:
- Lorusso: structural and economic forces
- Cole: representational and visual ideologies
- FitzGerald: professional narratives and gatekeeping
Together, these readings demonstrate that design cannot stand outside systems of power: every visual choice, every narrative, and every design form is already implicated in the structures that produce it. There is no neutral design.
- Building a multi-page typographic system
- Making a difference using the same system elements
- Impruvimg in hierarchy
- Improving overal code skills
- Responsive typography and layout adaptation
Copyright 2020 The Inter Project Authors (https://github.com/rsms/inter)
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:
https://openfontlicense.org
SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007
Copyright 2024 The Geist Project Authors (https://github.com/vercel/geist-font.git)
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:
https://openfontlicense.org
SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007
Copyright 2011 The Roboto Project Authors (https://github.com/googlefonts/roboto-classic)
This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:
https://openfontlicense.org
SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007