Graphic Design

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The DNA of AND: Ampersand as Myth and Metaphor

From corporate rhetoric to consumer cliché to faux finishes and desktop veneer, truth has gone from being a steadfast principle to a silly posture. Once the stuff of morals and fables, its presence in everyday life has become an …

Michael Bierut|Essays

1989: Roots of Revolution

"Dangerous Ideas," the 1989 conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) chaired by Tibor Kalman and Milton Glaser, introduced many themes -- social responsibility, political engagement, professional ethics -- that still …

William Drenttel|Essays

Defamiliarization: A Personal History

In 1977, I wrote a college thesis about Michelangelo Antonioni. Fueled by illusions of scholarship, I attempted to evaluate this great Italian filmmaker through the lens of Russian formalist literary criticism. Out of nowhere, I …

William Drenttel|Essays

Typography and Diplomacy

Tom Vanderbilt is a writer whose observations on design I respect: I wish he had written this piece for Design Observer. Instead, we have a very good writer making smart design observations on Slate. Check out this story: the United States …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Crisis of Intent

Victor Schrager's photographs currently on view at Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York are dream-like and unsettling: richly saturated, they're a cross between the urban drama of a Hugh Ferris drawing and the sobering stillness of a Gerhard …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Magazine Cover

Comparing the magazine covers of today to those created for Esquire magazine in the 1960s by George Lois leads to only one conclusion: today's magazine ideal magazine cover is enticing, not arresting, aiming not for shock, but for …

William Drenttel|Essays

Call for Entries: Periodic Table of the Elements

Jessica Helfand and I are building a collection of Periodic Tables and hope to publish a book on their scientific, visual and cultural history. We are looking for examples — historical or contemporary — of interesting, …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Span of Casual Vision

William Drenttel|Essays

Adolf Wölfli Invents Design Brut?

[Adolf Wolfli, The Cevelar Mary (Funeral March, p.4038), (detail), 1929]Adolf Wölfli was a mad artist, a schizophrenic who molested three-year-old girls. Born in Bern, Switzerland in 1864, Wölfli died in 1930 at the age of 66. …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Forgotten Design Legacy of the National Lampoon

In a bookstore over the holidays I happened to come across a new edition of something had thought I would never see again: the legendary National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook. Originally published in 1971, the publication has at its …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Notes on Experimental Jetset

Experimental Jetset’s argument that design should have a certain autonomy and an inner logic separate from tastes and trends makes sense, but as a rationale for defaulting to Helvetica, is it convincing?

Michael Bierut|Essays

Errol Morris Blows Up Spreadsheet, Thousands Killed

Errol Morris’s documentary "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara" demonstrates his mastery of information design as a poetic narrative device.