Category: Essays

James Cartwright|Essays

Co-opting Design in the Name of Public Trust

The U.K.’s Government Digital Service used strategic design to streamline its bureaucratic processes and services. Could it be the democratic system’s Hail Mary?

Lincoln Cushing|Essays

The Women Behind the Black Panther Party Logo

A tribute to the women who shaped the Black Panther Party Logo.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Speech, Speech

The State of the Union Address is tonight. Messages, big ideas, careful details, second-guessing, refinements and revisions, anonymity: graphic design has a lot in common with political speechwriting. What kind of client do you suppose the …

Lena Struwe|Essays

From Seeds to Symbols: Dandelion Design In Our Lives

The dandelion has grown to become the perfect symbol of survival and rebellion, a beautiful fighter that refuse to follow rules and regulations. It also introduces uncontrolled chaos and randomness to our supposedly organized lives.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Herbert Spencer and The Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers by Herbert and Mafalda Spencer was aimed at children, but its intriguing visual approach is more “photobook” than “schoolbook.”

Brian LaRossa|Essays

The Shape of a Design Mentorship

Before the advent of writing, everything was taught through mentorship. How to chip a stone into an axe. How to build a shelter. How to love. How to lead. Mentorship is hardwired into our DNA.

Ken Gordon|Essays

The Second Life of Elevator Operators: A Lesson in Service Design

The manual passenger elevator will, of course, never win on efficiency. In fact, current elevators are already mostly automated and will surely become increasingly so in the future. But the manuals have something going for them that no …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Annals of Small Town Life: The Logo Stops Here

Working with Florence Knoll, Lucille McGinnis convinced her husband, Patrick B. McGinnis, that the New Haven Railroad needed a new logo. Enter Herbert Matter, Swiss-born designer, photographer and Yale professor whose own education was …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Vladimir Nabokov: Father of Hypertext?

The innovative narrative technique developed by Vladimir Nabokov for his 1962 novel Pale Fire—essentially a single epic poem with footnotes and commentary—anticipated hypertext, the internet, and the interconnected world of …

James Cartwright|Essays

Architecture for the People: Bryan C. Lee is Taking Trust Back into Public Spaces

“Architecture is the most democratic and the least democratically used tool.”

Steven Heller|Essays

Bury My Heart On St. Marks Place: A Sixties Memorial

The most influential period of my life happened between 1964 and 1969 (after the election and assassination of John F. Kennedy, and beginning with the Beatles and Dylan), with the revolutions in politics, civil rights, anti-war, …

Steven Heller|Essays

Memory of an Eclectic Modernist: Ivan Chermayeff

Remembering Ivan Chermayeff, who died this past Saturday, December 2. He was 85.