Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand|Critique

To Thine Own Selfie Be True

Photographing oneself has become a singular pastime, an instantly rewarding yet indisputably time-sucking activity poised somewhere between narcotic and sport.

Jessica Helfand|Case Studies

Publication as Parody

Stephen Colbert copied our cover and we were thrilled. But then we wondered: when does copycat design become inappropriate, or unethical, or illegal?

Jessica Helfand|Photos

Fast Thinking

Is this a slapstick fall captured as a slow-motion sideshow? Or an example of how accelerated exposure times tell a different story?

Jessica Helfand|Insights Per Minute

Jessica Helfand on Brevity

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer, writer, and educator.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Our Shopping Lists, Our Selves

Jessica Helfand on lists: from the mundane to the historical, the shopping list to the Bill of Rights.

Jessica Helfand|My First Job

When Less Was More

Jessica Helfand reminisces about her first graphic design job.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Twelve

In the end, Ezra Winter was a man whose devotion to the classical world virtually underscored his every move: it explained his ineffable pursuit of youth, his enduring worship of women, his unyielding obsessions with fantasy and grandeur, …

Jessica Helfand|Projects

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Nine

The Fountain of Youth would be Ezra Winter’s greatest achievement, an enduring cultural icon in the city he loved — and on every possible level, a simply insurpassable feat: it is an extraordinary painting precisely …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Bill Moggridge 1943-2012

Jessica Helfand remebers Bill Moggridge.

Jessica Helfand|Projects

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Eight

The Spanish dancer Carola Goya falls in love with Ezra Winter, and almost ruins her career.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Five

In 1920, Warren Harding was elected President on a “Return to Normalcy” platform. But for Ezra Winter, nothing was normal.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Why Write About Graphic Design?

Today, graphic design is no longer a function of pictures and words on paper, because graphic design is no longer only about being graphic. It operates on multiple cultural, linguistic and formal platforms, and its boundaries are porous …