Total Armageddon

30 March 2019 ● 2 mins read ● 7 images

I recently edited a new book titled Total Armageddon for Slanted Publishers. 

It is a book about design. And culture. And complexity, notably how we, as a global civilization, deal with science fiction, taste, social media, the cities we live in, aesthetics, PowerPoint, burkas, authenticity, monuments, HIV, screens, representation, Big Tech, full-contact sports, and other thorny topics.

This book is full of essays culled from the first 32 issues of the leading international design journal Slanted as well as new writing and writing from elsewhere, all specifically chosen for this book.

It includes essays written by the most vital and vibrant global voices in writing on design and culture today from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. Writers like Natalia Ilyin, Randy Nakamura, Steven Heller, Piotr Rypson, Silas Munro, Gerry Leonidas, Yoon Soo Lee, Kenneth FitzGerald, Kiyonori Muroga, and a host of others. I wrote the introduction to the book, as well as a new essay which is interleaved throughout Total Armageddon’s chapter starts, as well.

In a world that feels like it is bursting at the seams due to overpopulation, climate change, economic downturns, strife, selfies, discord, and all-out war, we need somewhere to turn.

Our mobile devices tell us that the Apocalypse is just around the corner … perhaps we just need to look the future in the face by examining the present and all of it’s designed faults, fractures, beauties, luminosity, issues, complexities, and cracked screens.

Welcome, friends, to the end of the world.


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About Ian

Ian Lynam

I'm a creative director in Tokyo, Japan

I'm a graphic designer, design educator, design critic and design writer who has been based in Tokyo for 19 years.

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