Category: Essays

Jessica Gladstone|Essays

WHTARQT!* (Vanity, Thy Name Is Virginia)

Photograph by Jessica Gladstone, 2006.Car-commuters (and I am one) are a curious breed, hovering on one another's bumpers, desperate to inch forward, determined to avoid, at all costs, the incipient road-rage that is the natural …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Road to Hell, Part Two: That Elusive Silver Bullet

An online offer to teach anyone to do graphic designer raises the ultimate question: can we conclusively prove the value of design to the general public? We can't? Now what?

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

Living Without The Internet

I've just done what tens of thousands of Brits do every summer: I've spent the past two weeks holidaying in rural France. This annual British invasion of our near neighbour is, ostensibly, a search for good weather, unspoilt countryside …

Rick Perlstein|Essays

What is Conservative Culture?

Goldwater AuH2O license plate, 1964.AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT COURTESY OF THE NEW REPUBLIC.In the long march of the conservative ascendancy, Folk Songs to Bug the Liberals, the 1964 LP by the satirical conservative quartet the Goldwaters, was …

Dmitri Siegel|Essays

Please CARE

One of graphic design's strengths in its relatively short history has been its flexibility. The field has adapted to technological and economic changes over the last half century by absorbing elements of computer science, animation, …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Global Curse of Comic Sans

In this coastal region slung just below the Pyrenees, one might expect to see evidence of the enduring cultural tensions between Spain and Catalonia — different kinds of signs or symbols, for instance â€" but on the …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Where the Happy People Go

The ferociously positive letters column in Architectural Digest magazine demonstrates that design can make people almost unnervingly happy.

William Drenttel|Essays

Move It Down . . . A Little to the Right

Detail, Guggenheim Museum facade under renovation. Photograph by Chris Kasabach, 2006.One of the great artifacts of American architecture is being renovated in New York City. Scaffolds are up, and paint and surface stucco are being …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Regrets Only

Five graphic designers have chosen to boycott a breakfast at the White House for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards. A principled stand or an empty gesture?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Right Stuff

Illustration by Nick Dewar, 2004.I once worked for a man who marched past my cubicle each morning shouting "Coffee!" without so much as a sidelong glance in my direction. Each day for nearly eight months I did indeed get him his coffee, …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Right Stuff

Illustration by Nick Dewar, 2004.I once worked for a man who marched past my cubicle each morning shouting "Coffee!" without so much as a sidelong glance in my direction. Each day for nearly eight months I did indeed get him his coffee, …

Lorraine Wild|Essays

Wassup, Beatrice

Poster designed by Beatrice Warde, 1932.Like many a designer from coast-to-coast, I've been mulling over the Business Week design-for-free debacle, discussed extensively on this site. It has made me realize that the problem with AIGA's …