John L Walters

Paul Simon, Here Comes Rhymin’ Simon (1973). Great album with a cover by the late Milton Glaser (1929-2020), who emphasised the distinctiveness of Simon’s compositions by creating a visual symbol for each song title: the blue eye with a ❤️ pupil for ‘Something So Right’; a 35mm film canister unspooling for ‘Kodachrome’. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section underpins some of the tunes, and there isn’t a weak track. Guest musicians include Airto Moreira, the Onward Brass Band and The Dixie Hummingbirds, and there’s a particularly delicious bit of piano (Barry Beckett) on ‘One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor’. #greatamericansongbook #paulsimon #miltonglaser #20challenge #impact #sessionmusicians #columbia #illustration #graphicdesign #camerareadyartwork #typography #philramone #royhalee #muscleshoals #dixiehummingbirds

‘The ouroborus of hype’ Packed with information, The AI Con pours cold water on ‘AI’ hysteria, while drawing attention to the tech’s environmental and ethical implications The AI Con By Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna. The Bodley Head, £16.99. Designed by Bonni Leon-Berman. Reviewed by John L. Walters #Criticalpath #artificialinteligence To read the review in full on the Eye blog, paste /blog/post/the-ouroboros-of-hype into your browser.

Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner (1960). Another teenage favourite, most likely discovered in a bargain bin for 50p,* which includes a storming performance of the funky fourth movement. #20challenge #musicdesign #classicalmusic #folkmusic #belabartok #fritzreiner #ChicagoSymphony #HungarianSketches *As Noel Coward didn’t quite say, ‘Funny how cheap potent music is.’

Flick through #Eye109, packed with great articles, interviews and reviews. And ads! Buy single issues or order a subscription via the @esco_uk link in bio, or go to http://bit.ly/EyeShop1 and select your region … Editor: John L. Walters. Art director: Simon Esterson @estersonassociates Business manager: Janet South @janaaysouth Special thanks to @stephen.coates @typeasimage and especially @harmonyblaise for the video. Type reviews by @typeoff @sflilvia @lindatypo @clough.italy @toshiomagari

I enjoyed visiting the Center for Visual Arts Berlin, for the current Tadanori Yokoo exhibition, which features more than 200 posters by the great Japanese artist / designer. It’s curated by designer and gallery owner Jianping He (@he_jumping ), who has also art directed a two-volume catalogue of Yokoo’s posters, from 1953 to the present day. The show has been extended until 30 April 2026. The CVA’s previous show, about Berlin design practice Cyan, was also very good. It’s a huge space. Highly recommended. The location is Unter den Eichen 101, 12203 Berlin, not far from Lichterfelde West S-Bahn station. #visualculture #posters #graphicdesign

Broken English It was a privilege to go to the Barbican on Wednesday 18 March for the premiere of Broken English, the fascinating (if fussy) documentary about Marianne Faithfull, which features an underscore by Rob Ellis, graphic design by Jon Barnbrook and music supervision by Lucy Bright, all of whom I know from my Unknown Public audio journal days. Filmmakers Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard introduced the 99-minute film. As soon as the credits finished rolling, the duo returned to the stage to herald a set in which artists who had worked with Faithfull paid tribute by performing the songs she’d made her own. Forsyth and Pollard said that while the evening was all about Faithfull, the concluding concert was also ‘a little bit about’ music producer Hal Willner (1957-2020), a great friend to Faithfull, and in their words an ‘alchemist’ of music. The ensuing performance was unmistakably in the spirit of the compelling albums and unpredictable concerts that Willner assembled, with an expert house band (led by Ellis, with Ed Harcourt on keys) and a glittering, wayward sequence of singers of wildly varying styles and sounds, from Beth Orton to Jarvis Cocker. The band included guitarist Adrian Utley, violinist Anna Phoebe, bassist Colin Greenwood and Pulp’s Mark Webber adding guitar for ‘Sliding Through Life on Charm’, the song he co-wrote with Cocker, Faithfull and others. Rufus Wainwright sang ‘The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife’ (Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht), accompanied by Harcourt. As Wainwright pointed out, the subject matter is sadly, enduringly topical. (Faithfull perfomed this song on Willner’s Lost in the Stars album in 1985, its cover designed by Tibor Kalman’s M&Co.) Anna Calvi closed the evening with a roiling cover of ‘Broken English’, which brought out the best in the band as they thrashed out the song beneath a calm, uncannily high-res Gered Mankovitz portrait of the young Marianne. #creativemusic #mariannefaithfull #halwillner Thanks to Tim de Lisle (@tim.delisle ) for the ticket. A splendid evening.

🔥 John Walters will be on the Panel Discussion: Publishers in graphic design & typography at #typeparisnow26 (link on profile) 30 May 2026, 🎟️ Ticket €190, include access to all talks, booksellers, TDC#72 opening, snacks, beverages, and a tote bag full of graphic and type goodies. ➽ Editor and co-owner of Eye, the international review of graphic design. He has written extensively about graphic design and culture, and has co-hosted more than 50 Eye Type Tuesday events at St Bride Foundation in London. He also edits Pulp journal for Italian paper company Fedrigoni. 📚Rare issues of Eye magazine will be on sale in the booksellers corner. Be ready to acquire collectors! Now26 Graphic & Type conference Tickets ➽ Regular €190, ➽ Late €240, ➽ Student €50 (conditions apply). ❡ Speakers Graphic design Marie Carrasco, FR Filipe Carvalho, PT Golgotha: Antoine Aillot, Guillaume Hugon, Marvin De Deus Ganhitas, FR Martine: Justine Suillaud + Margot Retif, FR Özge Güven, TR Astrid Stavro, GB ❡ Speakers Typography Tobias Frere-Jones, Frere-Jones Type, USA Léon Hugues, FR Hélène Marian, FR David Quay, The Foundry Types, GB Flavia Zimbardi, BR ❡ Panel Discussion: Publishers in graphic design & typography Eye Magazine, John Walters Slanted, Julia Kahl B42, Alexandre Dimos Elliot Jay Stocks 🔥 Follow @flaviazim @glgth @astridstavro @chattasco @thefoundrytypes @helene_marian @filoak @ozgeguven @frerejones @martine.studio @leon.hugues @eyemagazine_ @slanted_publishers @editionsb42 @elliotjaystocks — — — #typeparis26 #graphicdesign #typography #fonts

I’m very glad I managed to buy a rare ticket to see the play Miles., at Southwark Playhouse. Based on a concept by Jay Phelps, it was written and directed by Oliver Kaderbhai, artistic director of :Delirium. I found it musically coherent, ingenious and quite moving, weaving biographical information into an imagined conversation between Miles Davis, a very physical ghost, and a present-day trumpeter (Phelps). Lead actor Benjamin Akintuyosi looked and sounded uncannily like Miles in the late 1950s, and the production made good use of recordings and projected film, stills and ephemera from the era. I found myself wondering how my friend and mentor Ian Carr (1933-2009) would have reacted to it. Ian wrote the first critical biography of Miles Davis, published by Quartet in 1982 (it was edited by my wife Clare). I think Ian would have loved it. The sold-out run continues until 7 March 2026. Might be worth queuing for returns. #southwarkplayhouse #milestheplay #milesdavis #kindofblue

Founded in 1995, the regular Friday night Jazzlive sessions at the Crypt of St. Giles, Camberwell have created a remarkable thing: an international jazz venue that feels like an unpretentious club for the local community (and vice versa). 2025 was a year of many excellent Crypt gigs, by Art Theman, Adam Glasser, Luna Cohen, Felipe de Souza, Da Lata, Jonny Phillips and many more. But perhaps the most memorable evening was the 30th anniversary on Fri 24 October, with Gary Crosby’s Mingus Moves band, a septet packed with young talent that caught the mood of forward-looking celebration. Jazzlive co-founder Russell Occomore (above) gave a moving and inspiring speech to explain how the club came to be, and how it continues to thrive as a place in which everybody’s welcome. Though Jazzlive is rooted in our Camberwell community, anyone and everyone is made to feel at home, whether they are new to the neighbourhood or a longstanding supporter; whether they’re a deep-dyed jazz enthusiast or just someone curious to hear superb musicians who perform and improvise music in real time, in front of a sympathetic crowd. The sound is always good, likewise the bar and food, and it’s organised and programmed with great flair by Russell, Mary Devlin, the Jazzlive committee, staff and volunteers, who are highly professional but run the place with a light and modest touch. Whatever the genre, the Crypt always feels warm, friendly, respectful and safe, a good deed in an unstable world, and it commands the high opinion of every musician who has played there, and the loyalty of locals. On 24 Oct, Tomorrow’s Warriors co-founder Gary Crosby (bass) led his young band Mingus Moves through two sets of originals and classic tunes, with Alex Ho (piano), Mark Kavuma (trumpet), David Kayode (tenor sax and flute), Miranda Radford (drums), Christ-Stéphane Boizi (trombone) and Nahuel Angius-Thomas (bassoon). It was a good way to celebrate this significant anniversary. Thank you #JazzliveSE5. Looking forward to many more great gigs in 2026. #jazz #Camberwell #Camberwelllife

Common sense from Baldur Bjarnason, from his article ‘The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con.’ LLMs are not brains and do not meaningfully share any of the mechanisms that animals or people use to reason or think. LLMs are a mathematical model of language tokens. You give a LLM text, and it will give you a mathematically plausible response to that text. There is no reason to believe that it thinks or reasons – indeed, every Al researcher and vendor to date has repeatedly emphasised that these models don’t think. There are two possible explanations for this effect: 1. The tech industry has accidentally invented the initial stages [of] a completely new kind of mind, based on completely unknown principles, using completely unknown processes that have no parallel in the biological world. 2. The intelligence illusion is in the mind of the user and not in the LLM itself. v/letters/llmentalist/ #artificialintelligence #largelanguagemodels #eliza #BaldurBjarnason

The Financial Times has just published my fourth ‘The Life of a Song’, feature, this time about the Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’, released 3 December. There are scores of cover versions (including one by former Landscape guitarist Laurence Juber) and you can hear more tracks on this Tidal playlist, /playlist/a003e717-ed39-4675-9bb1-290b00ef4a7c which also includes the influential ’Watch Your Step’ by Bobby Parker. Thank you to Stefanie Hempel (Silver Spoons) for telling me about Parker, many other insights, and to Ben Barritt for guitar consultancy. FT links Day Tripper: when The Beatles entered the battle of riffs /the-life-of-a-song /content/2aab1958-7561-4cb9-aeab-6a280b499428 By John L. Walters. Published 6-7 December 2025.

Snapshots from a wonderful day in celebration of Michael Gibbs’s honorary doctorate at Birmingham Conservatoire. Friends, family, staff, students, celebrities and lots of music from multiple ensembles (in three venues), including a fabulous big band performance in the Eastside Jazz Club. Nice food, great support staff and lots of interesting artefacts from Mike’s archive to view. Many thanks to Ed Puddick (3) for going the extra mile to make this such a special day for Mike. #doctorhonoriscausa #jazz #jazzcomposition #michaelgibbs #mikegibbs