Arts + Culture

Rob Walker|Essays

Subconscious Warm-Up

The Speedo LZR Racer suits worn byMichael Phelps and other world-class swimmers. Promoted as a design breakthrough and worn by the most victorious Olympian in history, it offers a potent blend of functional promise and emotional …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Posters of Padua

Graduation poster, photographed in Padua, March 2008You’d be hard pressed to find tangible evidence of graphic design back in, say, the thirteenth century (though evidence of creative productivity is an unarguable Medieval conceit) but …

Adam Harrison Levy|Essays

The Inventor of the Cowboy Shirt

A lost afternoon in a Denver mall turns into an intimate portrait of the 101-year-old inventor of the cowboy shirt, and the stubborn, stylish ideas that reshaped Western wear forever.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Second in a Series: Completions

Photograph by Mitchell Feinberg for New York Magazine, 2006For two years, I’ve had this image on the wall in my studio — a step-by-step examination of a gradually diminishing Mallomar — which (other than a possible symbol for the …

Michael Bierut|Essays

David Foster Wallace, Branding Theorist, 1962-2008

Rob Walker|Essays

Shared Memories

Many of the images reproduced in Scrapbooks: An American History, by Jessica Helfand, date back 50, 80, even 100 years. Reproduced in color and spread across wide pages, the anonymous scrapbook creators could hardly have imagined such …

William Drenttel|Essays

Whose Flag?

Adbusters' poster, design by Pedro Inoue, 2008Recently, I received a poster on a topic I care about, issued by an organization I respect. It's a call-for-entries for a flag design competition being hosted by Adbusters, on the topic of …

Thomas de Monchaux|Essays

Remembering Yves St. Laurent

 Yves St. Laurent, photo: World News AustraliaWhat does it mean to design? What does it mean to have been designed? In one sense, the word is entirely superfluous: every artifact of human invention, assembly, adaption, or production, …

Steven Heller|Essays

Where Have You Gone R. Cobb?

Cartoon by Ron Cobb, 1966In 1968 the two most influential underground newspaper cartoonists in America were R. Crumb, who most everyone knows today, and R. Cobb, who sadly many do not. Crumb devastated establishment pieties while Cobb …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Biblionomatopoeia

Trauma by Patrick McGrath, cover design by Peter Mendelsund, 2008Onomatopoeia is the term used for words that sound like what they are describing — words like zip and boom, for instance — although the concept, it should be …

Adam Zagajewski|Poetry

"Describing Paintings"

We usually catch only a few details — grapes from the seventeenth century, still fresh and gleaming,perhaps a fine ivory fork, or a cross's wood and drops of blood, and great suffering that has already dried. The shiny parquet creaks. …

Steven Heller|Essays

Canned Laughter

Recently, I caught a whiff of a pungent odor emanating from a local construction site and noticed a thick green, anaconda-sized hose running from a tank on a truck emblazoned with the words “Call-A-Head” in bold gothic letters on the …