Essays on design, culture and violence.
WAR WITH MYSELF is a wide-ranging collection of essays spanning design, authenticity, Empire, decolonization, and history. Hot on the heels of his books The Impossibility of Silence: Writing for Designers, Artists & Photographers and The Failed Painter (or Unchained by Material Anxiety), designer, writer and teacher Ian Lynam’s latest body of work is an urgent and impassioned examination of the contemporary condition.
“Joyfully and skillfully straddling the line between creator and critic, theorist and practitioner, formalist and rebel, American and expatriate, serious analyst and humorous deconstructor, Ian Lynam always brings a wholly original perspective to his writing on design. The insights are always fresh, and the stakes are always extremely high.”
– W. David Marx, author of Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
“Lynam adeptly juggles platters of diverse knowledge that include history, theory, philosophy, humanities, and the gamut of pop culture.”
– Louise Sandhaus, author of Earthquakes Mudslides Fires & Riots: California & Graphic Design, 1936-1986
“Ian Lynam is the Hunter S. Thompson of design writing.”
– Sereina Rothenberger, Jan Van Eyck Academie/Vermont College of Fine Arts
