Pentagram designs Francesca Gavin’s Watch This Space, dissecting the screens impact on society

“We wake up and check our screens for messages. If we travel to work on public transport, more than half of us are on our phones. We stare at screens for work and communication throughout the day. Travel home, and watch a screen again for entertainment or swipe it to hook up. Sometimes with a second screen on our lap. Then we go to sleep with our screens next to our beds,” reads the back cover of Watch This Space, a limited edition collaboration between author Francesca Gavin and Pentagram partners Luke Powell and Jody Hudson-Powell.

Watch This Space, launching on 8 November at Tenderbooks in London, examines the screen as a defining object of the twenty-first century. The book questions what the screen is, its function and how it shapes our experience, eyes and emotions. By analysing the screens impacts on our emotions and social interactions, it presents the screen as an “object that has become an extension of our modern bodies”. Chapters of the book are dedicated to the political implications of the screen, from social media data gathering to Donald Trump, as well as the representation of the screen in contemporary art.

In terms of design, Luke and Jody opted for the typeface Arial Narrow in reference to the estimated 1.5 billion computers that run the Arial font family. The included imagery, as well as the front and back cover, all replicate the physical feel of a screen to present a design which mirrors the concepts explored in the subject matter.

The book includes the work of artists including Cory Arcangel, Constant Dullart, Jon Rafman, Richard Mosse and Cécile B Evans.