As anyone that’s been following me on Dribbble over the last year or so knows, I’ve been quietly chipping away at revitalizing the online historical presence of renowned media and communications theorist, and former patron saint of Wired magazine, Marshall McLuhan along with McLuhan’s youngest son Michael and several other members of the McLuhan family.

From my perspective, the scale and importance of the project is incomparable to anything else I’ve worked on. It’s a challenge unlike anything I’ve experienced and it though it’s taking considerably longer than I’d like, it’s more important that we get it right than get it done fast. That said, I can’t wait to be able to share some of the amazing, largely unseen photographs that have been unearthed.

Though he passed away in 1980, the year 2011 marks McLuhan’s centennial, and as such, there are a myriad of events and activities happening around Toronto and the world to both celebrate the man and his work. Additionally, some of McLuhan’s most important and prescient writing is being republished.

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (Amazon US / Canada) is the second of such new releases from the McLuhan catalogue in 2011 and unquestionably a seminal text on modern culture, having sold over a million copies worldwide. The Medium is the Massage is also arguably his most accessible book, and belongs equally on the shelves of those studying media and communications as it does graphic designers.

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.

The prescience of The Medium is the Massage continues to be as relevant today as it was in 1967 and the addition of a new iconic cover by artist/provocateur, Shepard Fairey will hopefully shine a new light on it and allow a new generation to benefit from its insights.