Skip to content
Home › Essays › A Blog Poem, Part I

Jessica Helfand|Essays

December 16, 2003

A Blog Poem, Part I

Designers Develop
Distinctive Dementia
Denying Dear Debts Due
Descendants now Dead;
Doubt and Denial,
(Dada? Or de Stijl?)
Design Does Defile
Damned Discourse, instead.

Distrustful Detractors
(And Dear benefactors)
Disciples Discharged by
Disgrace or Dismay;
Delaunay and Duchamp
Delacroix (Muschamp?)
Designers Dare toil
the hours away.

DaVinci, De Kooning
(Girardi cartooning)
Delightful, Delicious,
Delovely, Detached;
Dexterity Derailed
For Downloads that retail for
Dollars and Dollars
Of monies mismatched.

Documentation
(eternal Damnation!)
Design Desperation
Dickensian Dash;
Distracted by Distance
Denying resistance
Developing Dapper,
Deceptive panache.

Despite Deconstruction
Determining function
Designers do Decorate,
Detail and Draw;
Database Driven, the
Die-hards (God Love ’em!)
Don Duotones, Deeming:
DESIGN IS THE LAW!

Observed

View all

Jobs

Share on Social

By Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand is an artist and writer based in New England. A former critic at Yale School of Art and one of the founding editors of Design Observer, she is the author of several books on visual culture including Self Reliance, Design: The Invention of Desire, and Face: A Visual Odyssey. jessicahelfand.com

View more from this author

“Design Observer has maintained the same clear vision for more than two decades: to expand the definition of design in service of a better world.” — Ellen McGirt, Editor-in-Chief

Subscribe to The Observatory