We publish this issue in collaboration with *Manystuff. As many people indicate, Manystuff is the most symbolic web space among the ones that emerged as powerful platforms where graphic design is showed, shared, and spread out. We summarized recent critical views upon it, focusing on its archive.
In this issue, you will find the entire 1,943 postings that have been created ever since Manystuff launched in January 2007. It is, so to speak, Manystuff the printed version. We scaled down what were on the screen, converted into B/W images, placed them on paper while keeping the original flow, letting images run over page to page. What we've recorded here is not the collection of the information each posting has, but the "current" that individual postings collectively create.
Through this archive which may seem like a source book, we hope to reveal the context of critical design confronting the mainstream. We sense the meaning of the selection Manystuff makes, the experiments and the alternative decisions, the inquiries of new graphic design language within this context. The spirit of graphic design of this age, if it exists, cannot be pondered without them. -Editor