Arts + Culture

William Drenttel|Essays

Catastrophic Imaginings: The Design of Disaster

A still from Refraction, a video by Aernout Mik.A decade ago, we were living in a loft on a quiet park in the shadows of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. One spring evening, I took our dog for her late night walk — it was …

Debbie Millman|Audio

Andrew Geller, Alastair Gordon + Jake Gorst

Andrew Geller, Alastair Gordon and Jake Gorst talk about Gorst's new documentary Leisurama.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Adventures of Cynic Boy and Design Mom in 3D

Left: Miramax Film Corp, ©2005. Right: Reddy Kilowatt Ashton B. Collins Sr. ©1926.Now that summer is here and my children are out of school, I have embarked upon a series of seasonal activities familiar to working mothers …

Debbie Millman|Audio

David Barringer

Debbie Millman interviews Winterhouse Writing Award winner David Barringer, who discusses his new book and his views on the state of contemporary graphic design.

Rick Poynor|Essays

In Memoriam: My Manual Typewriter

The fully evolved typewriter is a 20th-century industrial archetype. It feels inevitable, almost elemental, like one of those object types, such as a chair or a fork, that simply had to exist in this universe of forms.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Cut: When Life Imitates Art (I Mean Design)

I dreamt a few nights ago that I was watching a television game show called Photoshop! in which designers, as contestants, were asked to capture images from the web in front of a live studio audience. Suddenly a photo of a horse merged …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Man Who Saved Jackson Pollock

Herbert Matter, the designer who stored away a cache of recently-discovered Jackson Pollock paintings, deserves a similar rediscovery.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Mevis and Van Deursen: Rueful Recollections, Recycled Design

In their self-edited monograph, Dutch graphic designers Mevis and Van Deursen turn their backs on their professed commitment to ideas and treat the book mainly as an opportunity for undemanding aesthetic play.

Rick Poynor|Essays

But Darling of Course it’s Normal: The Post-Punk Record Sleeve

There have been collections of post-punk music and now, finally, there is British music critic Simon Reynolds' 500-page history of the genre from 1978 to 1984. It's a brilliant book. He argues that post-punk music's explosion of creativity …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Eduardo Paolozzi, 20th Century Image-Maker

If a visual artist created more concentrated, exhilarating images of science, technology and the media realm during the mid-20th century than British artist Eduardo Paolozzi, then I would like to see them. Paolozzi, who died on 22 April …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Extremely Young and Incredibly Everywhere: The Public Art of Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer published his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, to critical acclaim only three years after graduating from Princeton University, where he won the Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior Creative Writing thesis …

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.