UN/SEEN—Women in Graphic Design up to the Bauhaus

Published July 6, 2026

If we want to rewrite the history of design, we must take its beginnings into account. The period before the Bauhaus, the importance of “arts and crafts,” and, above all, the achievements of women in graphic design have long been neglected in the presentation of German design history.

UN/SEEN brings together previously unknown material and sheds light on the lives and work of female designers in the fields of book design, poster design, typography, illustration, and packaging. In ten chapters, UN/SEEN documents the latest research findings and uses numerous examples to show how successful and self-confident the first generation of female graphic designers was and which discourses from that time still shape the discipline today.

UN/SEEN questions traditional narratives and contributes to the discussion about design and gender with new role models. The book is accompanied by the project platform unseen-women.design. The publication is available in both an English and a German edition.

Published by Slanted Publishers and edited by Petra Eisele and Isabel Naegele, this volume features a foreword by Ellen Lupton and contributions from Brigitte Baumstark, Friederike Berger, Julia Blume, Gerda Breuer, Petra Eisele, Aliena Guggenberger, Jana Haase, Antje Kalcher, Julia Meer, Julia Mummenhoff, Isabel Naegele, Julia Neller, Antje Neumann, Bettina Richter, Julia Rinck, Kerstin Stöver, Ute Thomas, Christina Thomson, and Sabine Wieber. Designed by Julia Neller, the book comprises 422 pages in a 18.4×26 cm format. Produced using full-colour offset printing, it is printed on Arena Rough 120 g/m² paper by Fedrigoni and bound as a hardcover edition featuring a lenticular foil cover and thread stitching.

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