Graphic Design

Lorraine Wild|Essays

Good Font, Shame About The Reporting

Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Independent Pictures.Typography is an unlikely subject for newspaper reporters, but when it does make news, it's perhaps worthy of a closer look. And in yesterday's premier 2006 edition of The New York Times, the …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Unbearable Lightness of Fred Marcellino

Remembering Fred Marcellino, the designer and illustrator who dominated the look of quality fiction dustjackets in the 1980s.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Cease and Design

When my daughter, Fiona, was five years old and first learning to write, she came home from school one day and set to work. Pencil gripped firmly in her tiny hand, she wrote a word — then plunked her first and second fingers down …

Lorraine Wild|Essays

Think Regional, Act Annual

Print Regional Design Annual, cover by Abbott Miller, 2005Flying from New York to Los Angeles last week, I spent the long hours at 35,000 feet doing something I had not done in years: I read Print Magazine's "2005 Regional Design Annual" …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Shock Of The Old: Rethinking Nostalgia

Nostalgia has always been a bad word for designers. Like "retro" and "vintage" it smacks of a sort of been-there-done-that ennui — looking backward instead of forward, nostalgia presents as the very antithesis of the new. Even …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Great Non-Amber-Colored Hope

A student design for a prescription pill bottle takes a metoric rise to mass production and becomes an instant icon in the world of graphic design.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

On Citizenship and Humanity: An Appeal for Design Reform

It has been a hectic month here in the United States: a month of unspeakable hurricane devastation, two Supreme Court nominations and just this morning, a national address by our President reinforcing the White House's steadfast support of …

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

"Can you make the type bigger?"

Judging by the design blogs, the chatter at conferences and award ceremonies, and the rhetoric in the magazines, graphic design is a profession where insecurity and doubt are rife. Whenever graphic designers get together, the talk …

Paula Scher|Essays

Remembering Henryk Tomaszewski

Henryk Tomaszewski, Amsterdam, Holland, 1991Photograph by Almar SeinenDesigner Henryk Tomaszewski died on Sunday in his native Warsaw at the age of 91. In his lifetime, Henryk Tomaszewski accomplished the nearly impossible: he made a body …

Michael Bierut|Essays

You May Already Be a Winner

Are graphic design competitions worthwhile?

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 …

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 …