Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand|Projects

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Ten

In April, 1933, Ezra Winter delivers a fifteen-minute live radio talk on the subject of mural painting in relation to modern life, in which he tries desperately to convince himself that he has embraced the modern world.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Bill Moggridge 1943-2012

Jessica Helfand remebers Bill Moggridge.

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|Projects

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Eight

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

Jessica Helfand|Projects

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Seven

As the gulf widens between the aspirational and the real — between the projected self and the authentic self — Ezra Winter immerses himself in all that is beautiful and lyrical and dream-like, including and especially the …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Six

In the Spring of 1926, publisher George Palmer Putnam organized an 8,500 mile expedition to Greenland in quest of specimens for the then-new Hall of Ocean Life in the American Museum of Natural History: the ship’s roster included an …

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 …

Jessica Helfand|Books

Page One: Great Expectations

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

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Four

Ten months before the 1929 stock market crash, Edna Murphey was one of America’s foremost experts in health and beauty: she was also extremely wealthy. Three years later she became Mrs. Ezra Winter.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Ezra Winter Project: Chapter Three

In his first post-Academy professional pursuit, Ezra Winter is hired to design camouflage for the United States Shipping Board, using a reductive visual vocabulary of bold stripes and patches of solid color that is far closer to the …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Yoshiko Sato 1960-2012

Jessica Helfand's personal remembrance of the Japanese architect and designer Yoshiko Sato, who lost her battle with cancer earlier this month.