These are mainly technical articles, listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first). I write primarily on fundamental semiotic theory, and theory as applied to graphic design.

If you are new to semiotics – or to graphic design – you might begin with the Bloomsbury chapter which was written for their enormous 2020 series on contemporary semiotics.

If you have research library access, I strongly encourage you to go to the journal itself because the articles there will be in final, easy-to-cite form, and often are bundled with other articles on a given topic or theme.

What is graphic design? (Elsevier Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2025)

Design is intention made sign: Yves Zimmermann’s essential action (Design Issues, 2025)

Grateful Dead study: Hatten’s virtual agency and the “Beautiful Jam” (2024)

The radical art of calligraphy (Letter Arts Review, 2023)

The visual gamut and syntactic abstraction (Semiotica, 2022)

Designing design to death (Cambridge Scholar, 2020)

The highly semic process of asemic writing (Cognitio, 2020)

Semiotics in graphic design (Bloomsbury Series on Semiotics, 2020)

Semiotics of visual identity 2: logos (American Journal of Semiotics, 2020)

Semiotics of visual identity 1: systems and semiotics (American Journal of Semiotics, 2019)

Stage 1.X – Meta-design with machine learning is coming, and that’s a good thing (Dialectic, 2018)

Integrating Peirce and Integrated Information Theory (Cognitio, 2017)

Why information design can never be pure (Information Design Journal, 2016)

Typography and typology: bridging the type/token distinction (ms, 2012)

Structures of belief (Cognitio, 2012)

Do designers ever construct an argument? (Chinese Journal of Semiotics, 2012)

Toward a new elitism (co-authored with Carl R. Hausman; Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2012)

Touched by Tyche: an argument for agnosticism on the question of absolute chance (Cognitio 2008)

A transactional model of Peircean semiotic (Cognitio, 2006)

Are letter forms a threat to calligraphy? (Letter Arts Review, 2006)

Good theory is useful theory (Journal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts - AIGA, 1997)

Dark Star as an example of transcendental aesthetics (David Dodd’s Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, 1996)