Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Sweet Spot: Cake as Craft?

Within the broad genre known as reality television — in between the astonishing displays of amateur talent and the atrocious tales of teenage pregnancy — are nearly half a dozen programs devoted to extreme displays of, well, …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones but Print Can Never Hurt Me: A Letter to Fiona on First Reading "The End of Print"

In 2000, Jessica Helfand wrote a letter to her daughter Fiona, giving her a primer on graphic design.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Be Careful What You Wish For

What happens when you combine People's Sexiest Man Alive with GQ's Hottest Babe? They get married!Then they split up.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman!

The Canada Post announced last month that it is enlisting the public's help in designing a new stamp to raise awareness for mental health issues.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Oh, To Be An English, Um, Person!

Within the space of one hour yesterday, these two images flashed upon my screen — both of them curiously billed as "Englishmen."

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Pretty Pictures, Bad Judgment

If a picture's worth a thousand words, a publically broadcast picture is amplified, multiplied and cast out into a world where it can go anywhere.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Bantjes Covers

Marian Bantjes exposes the long process that led to the cover of her new monograph, I Wonder.

William Drenttel|Essays

An Introduction to Graphic Design

Graphic Design 101 by William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand.

William Drenttel|Miscellaneous

AIGA Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing: 2010 Recipients

AIGA and Winterhouse Institute announce the two writers selected to receive the 2010 AIGA Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism — including a $10,000 prize and a $1,000 student award.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Kindness of Strangers

Vignelli Celebration: If charity begins at home, how can we proclaim new and progressive agendas of social change without examining ourselves, our students, our profession?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Kindness of Strangers

Vignelli Celebration: If charity begins at home, how can we proclaim new and progressive agendas of social change without examining ourselves, our students, our profession?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Fat Chance

There's a long grounding for the appreciation of zaftig beauty in painting and sculpture — from the baroque beauties of Peter Paul Rubens to the geometrically rotund figures of Fernando Botero. So why is it so difficult to talk …