Essays by Justin Reynolds on politics, economics, technology, design & culture | 2014-2020

Fabulous monsters: Rees-Mogg, Corbyn, conviction and courtesy

Writing in the midst of Europe’s interwar turbulence, the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci observed that ‘the old world is dying away, and the new world struggles to come forth: now is the time of monsters.’ Though contemporary parallels with Gramsci’s troubled world can be overplayed, these transitional times have spawned, if not monsters, an impressive array of fabulous beasts.

Futura: a brief cultural history

Helvetica may still be the only typeface to have starred in a movie. But another great European font, which turned 90 this year, has had a still more profound impact on the world’s visual culture. An excerpt from a feature on the cultural history of the typeface Futura I wrote for The New European.