Category: Essays

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

Self-Initiated House Music

Sketches and Spells, CD cover by Julian House for Ghost Box, 2005.British graphic designer Julian House is best known for his album covers for Primal Scream, Stereolab and Broadcast. In the UK, House has an attentive following among …

John Thackara|Essays

Street Art Pro [August 2005]

Report on the Municipal Wirelss Conference in San Francisco, Label Rue in France, designs and government policy, the 2005 Assitive Tech conference, the 2005 Tactile Graphics conference and more.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Why Bugs Don't Belong on TV

Animation courtesy of Colossus, Inc.On today's TV screens, the station-identification logo sits tethered to the surface, like an annoying rash that won't quite disappear. You think you've kicked it when — WHAMMMO — there it is …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Vladimir’s House and Garden of Earthly Delights

Spending two weeks in Vladimir Beck's house on the island of Vrnik in Croatia made me question, yet again, rigid distinctions between artist and designer. Here, it's impossible to separate the two. Beck has designed every feature with a …

William Drenttel|Essays

Signs of Religion in the American South

Photo: Michael Brenner, 2005.DOWNLOAD FREE MP3 OF "STILL WATERS" BY JIM WHITE. Courtesy of Luaka Bop Records. (Click here.)Some months ago, we designed a CD package for Luaka Bop, the music label of Yale Evelev and David Byrne. Jim White …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Credit Line Goes Here

Design is essentially a collaborative enterprise. That makes assigning credit for the products of our work a complicated issue.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Rick Valicenti: This Time It's Personal

In his newly-published monograph Emotion as Promotion: A Book of Thirst, Rick Valicenti provides a glimpse into a designer's life that is at once accessibly seductive and brazenly idiosyncratic.

Michael Bierut|Essays

My Favorite Book is Not About Design (or Is It?)

Act One, the autobiography of playwright and director Moss Hart, is the best, funniest, and most inspiring description of the creative process ever put down on paper.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

New Models for Design Efficiency: Introducing Otto

Lorraine Wild|Essays

Exhibitions by Renzo Piano and 2x4

Vitra Showroom by 2x4, New York 2003. Photo: Courtesy of Vitra.Designers invited to display their work in the space of a museum face quandaries. Certainly the largest of these is that almost nothing about the processes of design — …

Rick Poynor|Essays

We Are All Editors Now. Or Are We?

Many designers aspire to be editors. But being an editor is not simply about choosing some things you like and throwing them together. Editing is about deep engagement with content and the construction of meaning.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Obvious, Shunned by So Many, Is Successfully Avoided Once Again

Does anyone devote as much energy to avoiding simple, sensible solutions as the modern graphic designer? Publications of designers' own work demonstrate what effort they go through to needlessly complicate what might be simple solutions.