Episode 88: Anonymous™

Anonymous is having quite a month. First Bob Woodward put out a book called Fear: Trump in the White House , informed by sources afraid to let him publish their names. Then the New York Times published an Op-Ed column by a “senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us…”

But not to the rest of us.

How do designers put a face to the thing you can’t name? Michael and Jessica talk about Pablo Delcan’s illustration for the anonymous Op-Ed, as well as Michael’s 1996 illustration for a Joyce Carol Oates column about anonymous authorship .

“The classic branded anonymous figure is trying to have their cake and eat it,” Michael says.

Jessica adds:

You can’t brand anonymity without effacing the actual credit of the person who is responsible for that act of authorship. At the same time, that this question of how the visual evidence of anonymity exists in the world remains, I think, by its very nature problematic. It’s about authorship, it’s about control, it’s about ownership, it’s about voice, it’s about fitting in…

Also mentioned this week:

• the print layout of Pablo Delcan’s illustration
• Noisy Decent Graphics by Anonymous Graphic Designer
• Design Maven
• Someguy
• Steven Heller, Design Observer, What’s In a Name? (1997)
• Face Values at the London Design Biennale
• Mike Rothschild, The #QAnon “Map” Examined
• Giorgia Lupi’s portfolio site
• Lupi on The Design of Business | The Business of Design
• Todd Alcott’s Etsy shop
• Wayne G. Hammond, Of Bookshops Past: Part One , on James Books of Parma, Ohio
• The Design of Business | The Business of Design conference , November 2 and 3, at the Yale School of Management.

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