Design Reviewed

Overview

Design Reviewed is an independent archive and website built by Matt Lamont to document the history of graphic design through a personal, growing physical collection. It addresses the lack of affordable access to design history for designers, researchers, and creatives by making over 11,000 scanned artefacts, designer profiles, country histories, and movement pages freely accessible online.

Unlike institutional archives or paywalled academic databases, Design Reviewed is a solo-run project where the core archive — including all designer profiles and scanned artefacts — remains free to explore without registration.

Key Benefits

• Access over 11,000 scanned artefacts of printed matter spanning 150 years of graphic design history at no cost.
• Browse 500+ designer profiles, country histories, and design movement pages without creating an account.
• Explore artefacts from 25 countries, covering a wide geographic and cultural range of graphic design practice.
• Unlock in-depth member articles researched and written directly from the physical collection for as little as £2.49/month.
• Access a 400-page companion book drawing from the collection, covering rare periodicals, posters, stamps, and ephemera organised from Art Nouveau to Postmodernism.
• Attend graphic design history workshops available for higher education institutions and design teams.

How It Works

Visitors browse the online archive freely by theme, format, decade, or designer profile without signing up. To read researched articles written by Matt Lamont and guest authors, users become members by selecting a plan starting from £2.49/month. Members also gain access to a newsletter and additional member resources through their account.

Use Cases

• Graphic design students researching historical movements, styles, and artefacts for academic projects.
• University lecturers in design history booking workshops to supplement higher education curricula.
• In-house design teams at agencies booking workshops to build knowledge of graphic design history.
• Independent design researchers accessing scanned periodicals and ephemera unavailable in public libraries.
• Collectors and enthusiasts exploring mid-century posters, matchbox labels, stamps, and type specimens by country or era.
• Authors and journalists referencing documented designer profiles and movement histories for editorial work.

Why Choose This Product

Design Reviewed suits designers, educators, and researchers who want free, direct access to a curated physical collection digitised over more than a decade. The archive is maintained by a single individual, which means its scope reflects a personal collecting focus rather than a broadly commissioned institutional collection.