Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut|Essays

Homage to the Squares

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's exhibition Design is not Art provides a useful contrast to an simultaneous exhibition of the work of Josef and Anni Albers, and demonstrates differences between art and design.

Michael Bierut|Essays

No Headline Necessary

A wordless billboard depicting the purple-stained fingers of Iraqi voters makes a potent advertisement for that country's newborn democracy.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Fear and Loathing in Pen and Ink

Michael Bierut|Essays

Designing Under the Influence

The similarity of a young designer's work to that of the artist Barbara Kruger provides the starting point for a discussion of the role of influence in design, and whether it is possible for someone to "own" a specific style.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Authenticity: A User's Guide

Graphic designers take pleasure in simulation. This makes defining authenticity a tricky thing.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Comfort of Style

The design process at the World Trade Center site has attracted enormous interest on one hand, and marginalized the role of designers on the other, as described in Philip Nobel's book Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Best Artist in the World

Alton Tobey, a little-known commercial illustrator, created a body of work in the early sixties that continues to inspire.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Robert Polidori's Peripheral Vision

Robert Polidori's photographs depict contemporary architecture in the context of a decidedly imperfect world.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Other Rand

The Fountainhead, a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand, continues to exert its influence over generations of architects and designers.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Just Say Yes

A seemingly legitimate news release from Dow Chemical on the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster was actually a hoax perpetrated by The Yes Men, who have created a new kind of civil disobedience uniquely suited to the media age.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Whole Damn Bus is Cheering

The familiar yellow ribbons stuck to cars urging us to "support our troops" have lots of competition and are horribly designed.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Logogate in Connecticut, or, The Rodneydangerfieldization of Graphic Design: Part II

A new logo for the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism by Cummings & Good provokes a public controversy on the value of design.