04.24.18
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

S4E10: Abbott Miller


Abbott Miller is a partner in the design firm Pentagram. He talked about how he approaches research, and the pleasures of projects for companies like Ritz-Carlton and American Express:
Both projects started with this sort of intensive investigation of the culture of the company, which in both cases has an amazing long history with lots of sort of graphic artifacts, representations, signifiers that have evolved over time.

For me, I always go to that material as kind of like my basis. And then you add on the stuff that's of a more pragmatic nature, like market research and what's going on with the business, and sort of what the whole focus of the project really is. But for me that, like, peeling back into those layers is really fascinating.


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Posted in: Design of Business | Business of Design




Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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