Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut|Essays

Alan Fletcher: Living by Design

Remembering the late British designer Alan Fletcher, who once said, "I treat clients as raw material to do what I want to do, though I would never tell them that." For him, design was not a profession or a craft, but a life.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Golden Age of American Commercialism

The encroachment of commercialism into everyday life seems like a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Yet around one hundred years ago, America began a romance with salesmanship that today seems almost delirious. A 1922 business directory shows …

Michael Bierut|Essays

This is My Process

Designers often describe our work processes in terms that are dated and ill-suited for the activities that we actually undertake. Is there a model for the way that artists work that would be intelligible in a business context?

Michael Bierut|Essays

Helmut Krone, Period.

One of the greatest designers that ever lived was an advertising art director: Doyle Dane Bernbach's Helmut Krone. A new book celebrates his life and work.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Road to Hell, Part Two: That Elusive Silver Bullet

An online offer to teach anyone to do graphic designer raises the ultimate question: can we conclusively prove the value of design to the general public? We can't? Now what?

Michael Bierut|Essays

Where the Happy People Go

The ferociously positive letters column in Architectural Digest magazine demonstrates that design can make people almost unnervingly happy.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Regrets Only

Five graphic designers have chosen to boycott a breakfast at the White House for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. A principled stand or an empty gesture?

Michael Bierut|From Our Archive

The Mysterious Power of Context

Some of the most effective graphic design is neutral and open ended, and acquires its effectiveness only through use and association. Is it possible to anticipate the power of context in design?

Michael Bierut|Essays

My Phone Call to Arnold Newman

Michael Bierut remembers a 25-year-old phone conversation with the late photographer Arnold Newman.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Road to Hell: Now Paved with Innovation?

Designers don't have many advocates as enthusiastic and highly-placed as Bruce Nussbaum. An assistant managing editor at Business Week, he's spearheaded the magazine's coverage of design and innovation for years, and has become an …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Eight-and-a-Half by Eleven

An installation of over 10,000 tiled pieces 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper redeems what has often been dismissed as a banal graphic format.

Michael Bierut|Essays

I Am a Plagiarist

Plagiarism is a hot topic in the world of publishing, What does it mean in the world of design? Michael Bierut pleads guilty.