Jessica Helfand

William Drenttel|Miscellaneous

AIGA Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing: 2010 Recipients

AIGA and Winterhouse Institute announce the two writers selected to receive the 2010 AIGA Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism — including a $10,000 prize and a $1,000 student award.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Kindness of Strangers

Vignelli Celebration: If charity begins at home, how can we proclaim new and progressive agendas of social change without examining ourselves, our students, our profession?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Kindness of Strangers

Vignelli Celebration: If charity begins at home, how can we proclaim new and progressive agendas of social change without examining ourselves, our students, our profession?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Fat Chance

There's a long grounding for the appreciation of zaftig beauty in painting and sculpture — from the baroque beauties of Peter Paul Rubens to the geometrically rotund figures of Fernando Botero. So why is it so difficult to talk …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Real Skinny on the Real Skinny

The is the first of two essays on the visual nature of body image.

Jessica Helfand|Collections

In the Palm of Your Hand: Dexterity Puzzles

A selection of rare dexterity puzzles from the personal collection of Jessica Helfand.

Jessica Helfand|Reviews

Viva The Villain: A Review of Despicable Me

In an age in which last week’s Bernie Madoff is next week’s BP oil spill, villains are no longer the stuff of fiction. So when a really juicy fictional villain comes along — let alone two — it’s time to go to …

Jessica Helfand|Miscellaneous

Happy Birthday, Steven Heller

A tribute to Steven Heller on his Birthday!

Jessica Helfand|Primary Sources

The Next Great Graphic Designer

Tonight on Bravo's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist" the winning Penguin book cover design will be unveiled, which begs a few questions. We hope our readers will weigh in with their opinions.

Jessica Helfand|Reviews

Rome’s MAXXI: Force Field as Field Space

The MAXXI center in Rome opens with a glorious, international exhibition and showcases a building that is likely to be as controversial — and as celebrated — as its designer.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Every Poem an Epitaph: The Protestant Cemetery in Rome

One does not have to be a poet to write heartbreaking words on a piece of eternal stone. Or perhaps the opposite is true, that all such memorials are lyrical remembrances — that every poem, as TS Eliot once observed, is …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Prisoners of Logic

For five or six years now, I have led a double life as a painter. Until recently, I viewed this other identity as a kind of dirty secret.