Some Posters from the NGV

BACKGROUND Histories of Australian graphic design are rare (Poynor, 2002). Only recently is this being addressed by projects like the Design History Australia Research Network (Whitehouse et al, 2012) and Re:collection (Hofstede et al, 2009). Contemporary art and design publishing is concerned, on the one hand, with the efficacy and poetics of the codex form (De Bondt and Muggeridge, 2009; Kinross and Hochuli, 1996). It is also concerned with making tacit practice knowledge explicit (Schön, 1983; Carter, 2004). In the cross section of these concerns, this research asks: what role has graphic design had in the cultural history of the NGV? And: what new possibilities are there for institutional museum publishing? CONTRIBUTION This research addresses these questions with a number of research methods and outcomes. First, the experimental and speculative approach to the design of the book created a materially and structurally distinct book. Second, a hybrid research and editorial approach (involving a mixture of archival research, ethnographic interview, commissioned essay, commissioned 'conversation' and practice-based design research) contributed to the new understandings of graphic design practice and history. And third, doing these things within an institution like the NGV speculatively demonstrated one alternative approach to museum publishing by that institution. SIGNIFICANCE Some Posters from the NGV was published in an edition of 500, was launched as a key event of the 2016 NGV Art Book Fair, and was distributed nationally by Thames & Hudson. In 2016 it won a Distinction award from the Australian Graphic Design Association. In 2017 it won a wooden pencil at the D&AD awards (London) and is a finalist in the Australian Book Design Association awards. In the media it has been the subject of feature articles in The Age and The Guardian newspapers, Blueprint for Living on ABC radio, as well as pieces in the following magazines: Wallpaper*, i-D, Desktop and Br