Category: Essays

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Designer by Day, Catwoman by Night

In the upcoming July release of the new movie, Catwoman, Halle Berry plays the title Jekyll-and-Hyde role, whose character is split between a shy, retiring graphic designer and an untamed, feline superhero. Naturally, the superhero is sexy …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Modernising MoMA: Design on Display

MoMA is broadening its approach to graphic design. Recovering this material history will assist us in understanding our broader cultural history and help to educate a more aware generation of visual communicators.

Michael Bierut|Essays

McSweeney's No. 13 and the Revenge of the Nerds

McSweeney's No. 13, published by Dave Eggers and guest edited by Chris Ware, is a masterwork of publication design and an invaluable survey of today's best comic artists and graphic novelists.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Annals of Academia, Part II: Graphic Design and The New Optimism

Though it was not my original intention to open a polemical debate on the role of theory in design education, it appears I have done so, so allow me to try and address this head-on. By way of disclaimer (or apologia) I am speaking for …

Michael Bierut|Essays

India Switches Brands

The 2004 elections in India were an exercise in branding as well as politics, as a well-funded "India Shining" campaign failed to convince the electorate to retain the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Annals of Academia, Part I: What I Didn't Learn In Graduate School

When I was in the ninth grade, I was required to take a class in environmental science. Having then, as now, virtually no scientific aptitide to speak of, I feared the uphill climb of my life. But instead, I was happy to discover that the …

William Drenttel|Essays

Learning from Las Vegas: The Book That (Still) Takes My Breath Away

Why did its authors hate the design of Learning from Las Vegas so much?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Time Waits for No Fan

I am, in principle, morally opposed to hero worship, but I'd like to announce that in my next life, I'd like to be Nigella Lawson. Like me, Nigella is a mother of two, a boy and a girl, and she is Jewish. She is my age. She is also …

John Thackara|Essays

Research Governance [May 2004]

Report on who is respnsible for the consequences of design actions, Jun Rekimoto's lecture at CHI, emotion detecting software, anticipitory systems at Philips Research, Designing Bits & Pieces Symposium,Machinista, and more.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Better Nation Building Through Design

A new flag design for Iraq may inadvertantly symbolize much of what is misguided in the US's occupation of that country.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Critics and Their Purpose

Pulling a 1960s art magazine from the shelf, I opened it at random to find a long list of thoughts about art criticism assembled in 1966 by students at the Royal College of Art in London. Many of these ideas apply to design.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Catharsis, Salesmanship, and the Limits of Empire

Nozone #9: Empire and a new promotional campaign for the radio station Air America demonstrate alternate ways that graphic design can engage political issues and their audiences.