Category: Essays

Steven Heller|Essays

Christoph Niemann’s Creative Powers: A Mystery Investigated

Steven Heller uncovers what makes Christoph Niemann a veritable illustration Superman.

Hannah Carlson|Essays

Fashion and Function at MoMA: Bernard Rudofsky’s “24 Pockets”

Not since the architect and social critic Bernard Rudofsky curated “Are Clothes Modern?” in 1944 has the MoMA addressed the contribution of apparel to the design arts.

Steven Heller|Essays

Chris Ware’s Really Big Novelty Book

The first time I was introduced to Chris Ware’s work was at R.O. Blechman’s Ink Tank office on West 46th Street.

Maya P. Lim|Essays

Walden, Or a Life with the Book

Can suboptimal book design discourage you from reading? Can the design of something ever stop you from doing something you love?

Cheryl Heller|Essays

A Busy Woman

Through corporate success, betrayal, and reinvention, Cheryl Heller found a new sense of strength in the face of uncertainty—and an understanding of what you just shouldn’t stomach anymore.

Ken Gordon|Essays

Narration vs. Curation: Deyan Sudjic, the Design Museum, and B Is for Bauhaus

To read a book is to stage an exhibition in one’s own imagination.

Steven Heller|Essays

Earnest Elmo Calkins: Founder of Modern Advertising and a Designer You Probably Don’t Know

“It is arguable that without the puritanically raised Calkins, Modern art would never have washed up on American advertising’s shores, creative advertising teams might not have existed, and graphic design would be a different …

Mark Kingsley|Essays

The Old Taylor Can’t Come to the Phone Right Now

Taylor Swift’s new album, Reputation, may aspire to high art; its cover design is most definitely a step toward the middle.

Sean Adams|Essays

Remembering Clive Piercy

Without Clive the world will be a little less colorful.

Bill Shaffer|Essays

Modern Survivor

An enormous, glorious, digital clock: a quintessential expression of the design ethos of the 1960s.

Steven Heller|Essays

Victims of the Image: Yellow Peril

Visual hazing in popular art and design of Asians was long maintained for different purposes.

Irene Malatesta|Essays

How Designers Can Fight Unconscious Bias: Powerful Lessons From Vectors SF

Exploring the problem and prevalence of unconscious racial and gender bias in the workplace and beyond.