Flexible Visual Systems

The Design Manual for Contemporary Visual Identities

Martin Lorenz

First edition. 2021

Still shrink-wrapped

320pp

Flexible Visual Systems is the design manual for contemporary visual identities. It teaches you a variety of approaches on how to design flexible systems, adjustable to any aesthetic or project in need of an identifiable visual language. To learn how to design flexible systems is not just learning another craft, it is going to change the way you think and work entirely. It is an approach, how to design. If you would place system design into a curriculum it would be the foundation course, putting you in the right mindset. You can apply the systemic approach to any discipline you will later specialize in, from corporate design, communication design, user experience design to textile design. The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a richly illustrated theoretic introduction (82 pages) explaining the past, present and future of flexible systems. The second part is a hands-on, almost purely visual, description of how to design flexible systems on form, starting with a circle, triangle, square, pentagon and hexagon. Lots of instruction manuals and examples on how to use them on 148 pages! The third part explains how transformation processes can become flexible systems for visual identities. Especially creative coders, motion designers and people who love to experiment will have a lot of fun with this chapter.