Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Woody Allen's Typography

Woody Allen's typography. (Thanks to Michael Brenner.) [JH]

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Gone, Baby, Gone (Things, Part II)

Things, as we all know, connect us to the world we inhabit. Big or small, expensive or insignificant, our attachments to other people and places begin with things. As infants, we navigate by smell and touch; with the social and verbal …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Remembering Paul Rand

My graduate thesis at Yale was a long, dissertation-style treatise on the history of the square. Only one member of the graduate faculty actually took the time to read it — and that was Paul Rand. "With what little time I've had to …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Things, Part I

In an age characterized by elevated environmental awareness — reducing our carbon footprint, enhancing our sustainable output — we remain obsessed with our attachment to the material world.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Type Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

About a year ago, I participated in a student portfolio review involving nearly a dozen American schools, many (most?) exhibiting the classic projects that characterize all undergraduate design programs — the color studies, the …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Science and Design: The Next Wave

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Stan Brakhage: Caught on Tape

For Stan Brakhage, that concentration resulted in extraordinary explorations of many things, including the life cycle of a moth, caught on adhesive strips of tape, and subsequently captured on film where it regained — however briefly …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Back To School

It is la rentrée, back-to-school time around much of the world this month, which involves a host of September activities — not least of which involves the selection of courses. Though generally considered a college ritual, our …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Back to School

It is la rentrée, back-to-school time around much of the world this month, which involves a host of September activities — not least of which involves the selection of courses. Though generally considered a college ritual, our …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Awarelessness

Awarenessless is a graphic art series, released on August 31st, 2007, in the wake of a July 18th, 2007 Oxfam Briefing regarding the immediate need for Humanitarian Aid in Iraq. [JH]

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Another Myth Brilliantly Debunked

Popular Science, June, 1956.In 1933, just three months after the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 13 folding-carton manufacturers met in Washington DC to organize objectives and clarify for their constituents a proposed Code of Fair …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Harry Potter and The Enchanted Letterforms

Warner Brothers Pictures, 2007.Followers of the Harry Potter films have long been groomed to anticipate a certain amount of change, particularly where the director is concerned. (After Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell, …