Twos Studio

When the designs for Pearl Palace were first presented to Princess Shams Pahlavi, architect William Wesley Peters recalled that she was so moved she left the room in tears. She later explained that it looked like the palace she had dreamed of as a child.

Built in Karaj in the late 1960s, the palace was designed as a complete world of its own. It included an indoor garden, swimming pool, private cinema, custom furniture, and even a circular bed beneath a spiral ceiling.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the palace was confiscated and gradually fell into decay. Today, it remains closed, with its promised restoration still uncertain.

Thanks to Yomadic and dr_khashayar_lohrasbi for some of the visuals used in this video.

Born in 1876, Hiroshi Yoshida is one of the icons of shin-hanga, the movement that brought new life to traditional Japanese woodblock printing.

In November 1930, Yoshida travelled with his son Tōshi through India and Southeast Asia. Over four months, he sketched the Taj Mahal, the ghats of Benares, Ajmer, Lahore, and the Himalayas. He was especially fascinated by the changing light, returning to the same subjects at different hours to capture entirely different moods.

After returning to Japan, Yoshida spent the following two years turning his sketches into 32 woodblock prints. Each image was built through multiple carved blocks and layers of colour. Although skilled carvers and printers worked in his studio, Yoshida controlled every stage of production, from the original design to the final impression.

The result was one of the most remarkable records of India ever created through Japanese woodblock printing.

Is AI the future of creativity?

This is an in depth, long form documentary by Twos Studio examining whether artificial intelligence is taking over creative graphic design.

Born in 1891 in St. Petersburg, Aleksandr Rodchenko was a pioneer of modern graphic design. A founding figure of Constructivism, he abandoned traditional painting to create a bold new visual language built from geometry, photography, typography, and photomontage.

Working alongside poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Rodchenko created around 150 advertisements for Soviet products and institutions. His striking compositions reflected his belief that design could serve society while expressing the optimism of a new world.

Under Stalin, Rodchenko’s experimental work was increasingly condemned for prioritizing aesthetics over Socialist Realism. Despite censorship and criticism, his revolutionary approach transformed photography and visual communication, leaving a legacy that continues to shape graphic design today.

On this episode of our Graphic Designers You Should Know About in 50 Seconds series, we look at Seymour Chwast, one of the most influential figures in graphic design and illustration history.

Chwast co-founded the legendary Push Pin Studios in 1954 with Milton Glaser, Reynold Ruffins, and Edward Sorel, helping bring illustration, expressive typography, and humor back to the center of graphic design. Throughout his remarkable career, he also designed and illustrated more than 30 children’s books, developed several typefaces, and received the prestigious AIGA Medal in 1985.

Who else should we feature

Born in 1929 in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Awazu is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Japanese graphic design. He became known for fearlessly reimagining traditional Japanese art through psychedelic symbolism, daring colors, and politically charged imagery.

Awazu challenged the modernist push for universal and uniform visual symbols. As he once explained, his aim was to “reawaken the past” and “summon back the outdated.”

Beyond posters, Awazu worked across illustration, architecture, film, and environmental design, leaving a powerful legacy that continues to influence Japanese graphic design today.

Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the Bauhaus existed for only 14 years, moving from Weimar to Dessau and finally Berlin, yet it became one of the most influential schools in the history of modern design.

Across the leadership of Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the school brought together architecture, typography, furniture, photography, textiles and art, challenging traditional ideas about how design should look and function.

Its radical modernism also made it a target of the N***s. After becoming the strongest political party in Dessau, the N***s pushed to shut the school there in 1932. Bauhaus continued privately in Berlin until a police raid and mounting N**i pressure led to its final closure in 1933.

But closing the Bauhaus had an unintended consequence. Figures including Josef Albers, Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe eventually left Germany, carrying Bauhaus ideas abroad. Moholy-Nagy even founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, helping a school the N***s tried to suppress become a truly international influence.