Media

Rick Poynor|Essays

Adbusters in Anarchy

Adbusters’ once orderly pages are in a state of heaving agitation. The magazine seems to be seduced by the coolness of design as a gesture, even though this is part of the surface-fixated postmodernism it deplores.

William Drenttel|Essays

Shallow Water Dictionary

A number of years ago, I stumbled across an out-of-print tract called the Shallow Water Dictionary: A Grounding in Estuary English by John R. Stilgoe, a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard. This almost-a-book, really-a-long-essay, is of the type described by Lawrence …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Implausible Fictions

At a symposium several weeks ago at the Annenberg School for Public Policy in Philadelphia, we gave a presentation in which we discussed some of the more vexing consequences of graphic design and what we've come to call faux science: namely, that making facts pretty and palatable, while …

William Drenttel|Essays

Information Archaeology

The New York Times recently ran a front page story about a U.S. Justice Department report on the agency's diversity efforts. The final assessment was posted on the web last month, but over half of the report was "blacked out." Obviously, a scandal in the making: the agency responsible for …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Color Me Kurt

An article in today's New York Times discusses the new direction for Colors under the editorial leadership of critic, author, editor and part-time radio host Kurt Andersen.

Rick Poynor|Essays

It's a Man's World

Adam Parfrey’s book shows hundreds of men’s magazine covers from the 1950s painted by artists who specialized in depictions of tough guys abusing terrified women. Have we outgrown this kind of thing? Heck no.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Fatal Grandeur

In one of the annotations to my design manifesto, "Me, The Undersigned," I wrote somewhat sarcastically of the seriousness with which some of us view our profession by noting, "Design is probably not going to kill you if it falls on your head." (Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The New York Times: Apocalypse Now, Page A1

Michael Bierut on the typographic redesign of the New York Times, October 2003.

William Drenttel|Essays

VAS: An Opera in Flatland

I first saw the work of Stephen Farrell while walking with Richard Meier through the opening of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial in 2000. Stephen made a 600+ page book about at typeface, Volgare, inspired by a Renaissance manuscript in the Newberry Library in Chicago. That …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Art of Elegant Abstraction

Bill Morrison's surprising 66-minute film is now playing on the Sundance Channel. For listings, see: http://www.sundancechannel.com/film_finder/index.php?startingLetter=d

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Real Declaration

It is the rare piece of journalism that considers the role of typography in history. Rarer, still, is the idea that such a piece leaves the ghetto of same-old design publications, and pierces the frequently inpenetrable veil of the so-called "popular" press. Boston-based designer and …

William Drenttel|Essays

Paul Rand: Bibliography as Biography

This is bibliography as biography, and a posthumous testament to the considerable scope — and ongoing life — of one designer's mind. A Selected Bibliography of Books from the Collection of Paul Rand