Illustration Now

1992
Booth-Clibborn Editions
London

Illustration Now is an annual of the best in European illustration. This is an early Barnbrook anti-consumerist design where the studio brought together both the commercial and political works in one project.

The book was produced before the internet was prevalent, artwork was fully digital and nobody had heard of Starbucks. The design speculates on the negative affects of globalism that played in the years after the books publication, it also highlighted Europe’s meddling in the Middle East.

The design’s context has now changed completely in the context of a rise of anti-European sentiment in the UK recently, but at the time it presented a much more subversive view of Europe that was far more left wing.

The well-known font Exocet was originally designed and used for the first time by Barnbrook for this publication.