Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. Prior to joining Pentagram in 1990 as a partner in the firm's New York office, he worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates, ultimately as vice president of graphic design. His clients at Pentagram have included The Council of Fashion Designers of America, Harley-Davidson, The Minnesota Children's Museum, The Walt Disney Company, Mohawk Paper Mills, Motorola, Princeton University, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the New York Jets.Bierut's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Montreal. He has served as president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1988 to 1990 and is president emeritus of AIGA National. Michael was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 1989, and was elected to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 2003. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art. He writes frequently about design and the co-editor of the four-volume series Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic published by Allworth Press. In 1998 he co-edited and designed the monograph Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist. His commentaries about graphic design in everyday life can be heard nationally on the Public Radio International program "Studio 360."
Contact Information:
bierut [at] pentagram.com
www.pentagram.com
Posts by Michael Bierut
Observatory
01.14.10: Designing the Unthinkable11.02.09: Designing Obama
10.05.09: The Figure / Ground Relationship
08.30.09: When Design Gets in the Way
06.21.09: Spoiler Alert! Or, Happy Father's Day
06.15.09: Seymour, An Introduction
05.06.09: Invasion of the Neutered Sprites
01.28.09: 26 Years, 85 Notebooks
01.04.09: Designing Through the Recession
10.27.08: The Four Lessons of Lou Dorfsman
09.15.08: David Foster Wallace, Branding Theorist, 1962-2008
08.18.08: My Handicap
08.03.08: There is No Why
07.07.08: Mad Men: Pitch Perfect
05.13.08: Fitting
03.31.08: The (Faux) Old Ball Game
03.11.08: Would It Kill You To Smile?
02.11.08: The Smartest Logo in the Room
01.08.08: Will the Real Ernst Bettler Please Stand Up?
12.22.07: The Most Hated Holiday Song in the World
11.11.07: How To Be Ugly
10.22.07: Déjà Vu All Over Again
10.09.07: Rest in Peace, Herbert Muschamp
09.21.07: May I Show You My Portfolio?
09.05.07: You're So Intelligent
08.16.07: Flat, Simple and Funny: The World of Charley Harper
07.25.07: Donal McLaughlin's Little Button
06.11.07: Everything I Know About Design I Learned from The Sopranos
05.24.07: Why a Book?
05.12.07: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface
04.06.07: Our Little Secret
03.19.07: Good at Art
03.06.07: Jean Baudrillard Dies
02.16.07: Cheap Music and Commercial Art
01.30.07: All That Jazz: Posters by Niklaus Troxler
01.23.07: Speech, Speech
01.16.07: The It Factor
12.20.06: Now You See It
12.11.06: The Graphic Glass Ceiling
11.20.06: New House
11.15.06: Onserved: CR on Alan Fletcher
10.12.06: What's That Crashing Sound, Or, Eisenman in Cincinnati
10.09.06: Vinyl Fetish
09.27.06: Alan Fletcher: Living by Design
09.24.06: The Golden Age of American Commercialism
09.09.06: This is My Process
08.23.06: Helmut Krone, Period.
08.08.06: The Road to Hell, Part Two: That Elusive Silver Bullet
07.17.06: Where the Happy People Go
07.10.06: Regrets Only
06.22.06: The Mysterious Power of Context
06.14.06: My Phone Call to Arnold Newman
06.04.06: The Road to Hell: Now Paved with Innovation?
05.19.06: Eight-and-a-Half by Eleven
05.11.06: I Am a Plagiarist
04.06.06: When Design is a Matter of Life or Death
03.30.06: Variations on a Theme: New York's High Priorities
03.18.06: Warning: May Contain Non-Design Content
02.26.06: The Persistence of the Exotic Menial
02.12.06: Design by Committee
01.22.06: Wilson Pickett, Design Theorist, 1942 - 2006
01.15.06: In Praise of Slow Design
12.29.05: The Unbearable Lightness of Fred Marcellino
11.20.05: Innovation is the New Black
11.06.05: Designing Twyla Tharp's Upper Room
10.29.05: The Final Days of AT&T
10.24.05: The Great Non-Amber-Colored Hope
10.13.05: Looking for Celebration, Florida
09.11.05: Four Years After
08.29.05: You May Already Be a Winner
08.16.05: Every New Yorker is a Target
07.22.05: Credit Line Goes Here
07.14.05: Rick Valicenti: This Time It's Personal
07.12.05: My Favorite Book is Not About Design (or Is It?)
06.28.05: The Obvious, Shunned by So Many, Is Successfully Avoided Once Again
06.19.05: Call Me Shithead, or, What's in a Name?
06.06.05: The Man Who Saved Jackson Pollock
05.09.05: On (Design) Bullshit
04.22.05: Me and My Pyramid
04.18.05: The Supersized, Temporarily Impossible World of Bruce McCall
04.03.05: Homage to the Squares
03.28.05: No Headline Necessary
02.28.05: Fear and Loathing in Pen and Ink
02.26.05: Designing Under the Influence
02.08.05: Authenticity: A User's Guide
02.03.05: The Comfort of Style
01.19.05: The Best Artist in the World
01.08.05: Robert Polidori's Peripheral Vision
12.24.04: And May All Your Christmases Be Carefully Staged So As To Appear White
12.16.04: The Other Rand
12.08.04: Just Say Yes
12.01.04: The Whole Damn Bus is Cheering
11.21.04: Logogate in Connecticut, or, The Rodneydangerfieldization of Graphic Design: Part II
11.18.04: The World in Two Footnotes
11.13.04: First Person Shooter
11.01.04: Colorama
10.28.04: Mr. Vignelli's Map
10.21.04: What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture
10.01.04: I Hate ITC Garamond
09.20.04: Graphic Designers, Flush Left?
08.23.04: The Graphic Design Olympics
08.17.04: What is Design For? A Discussion
08.14.04: The Rendering and the Reality
08.04.04: Eero Saarinen's Forty Year Layover
07.25.04: The Bodoni Conspiracy
07.20.04: Pablo Ferro Offers You His Protection
07.14.04: To Hell with the Simple Paper Clip
07.12.04: Ed Ruscha: When Art Rises to the Level of Graphic Design
07.05.04: And the Gold Award for Design Goes to God
06.29.04: The Tyranny of the Tagline
06.19.04: Barthes on the Ballpoint
06.16.04: The Idealistic Corporation
05.29.04: McSweeney's No. 13 and the Revenge of the Nerds
05.17.04: India Switches Brands
05.09.04: My Democracy Was Irretrievably Undermined by Reactionary Idiots and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt
04.28.04: Better Nation Building Through Design
04.22.04: Catharsis, Salesmanship, and the Limits of Empire
04.17.04: I Hear You've Got Script Trouble: The Designer as Auteur
04.02.04: Stanley Kubrick and the Future of Graphic Design
03.24.04: Michael McDonough's Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me in Design School
03.19.04: The Book (Cover) That Changed My Life
03.13.04: George Kennan and the Cold War Between Form and Content
03.06.04: 1989: Roots of Revolution
02.28.04: Information Design and the Placebo Effect
02.18.04: The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Magazine Cover
02.02.04: Rob Roy Kelly's Old, Weird America
01.31.04: The Sins of St. Paul
01.18.04: (Over)explaining Design
01.11.04: Vladimir Nabokov: Father of Hypertext?
01.05.04: The Forgotten Design Legacy of the National Lampoon
12.17.03: Errol Morris Blows Up Spreadsheet, Thousands Killed
11.24.03: Mark Lombardi and the Ecstasy of Conspiracy
11.10.03: Graphic Design and the New Certainties
10.28.03: The New York Times: Apocalypse Now, Page A1
