i was pleasantly surprised today to find the subject line “designing anarchy?” in my inbox this morning. the message was from the ever-consistent and suspiciously prolific steven heller as part of his daily heller series, to which i subscribe. there are several covers of various anarchist journals and he was even so kind as to include a great summation of what anarchism is, excerpted from a 1947 issue of resistance: an anarchist monthly.

several of the images were by rufus segar, illustrator and long-time designer of anarchy: a journal of anarchist ideas. i managed to follow a link and find this nice little image collection with some insightful commentary on recto | verso. it mentions that segar had designed nearly 118 of the journal’s covers – a hurculean feat in my book.

i had initially heard about segar from an interview he did for signal: a journal of international politics and culture, whose first issue was most excellent and which i highly recommend. the website has a number of his covers there as well as some excerpts from his interview.

it’s great to discover quality work done in service of radical ideas, much like emory douglas and many other lesser known contemporary artists and designers. if anyone knows of people like these, i’d certainly like to know of them so i can give them the proper fanfare in this venue.