Category: Essays

Michael Bierut|Essays

Designing Twyla Tharp's Upper Room

Jennifer Tipton's lighting design for Twyla Tharp's dance piece, In the Upper Room, creates a magical experience for the audience and brings her often unseen art to the foreground.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

On Considering the Source

A friend of mine, a painter, recently saw a group exhibition at PS1 in New York in which he was struck by the absence of primary source material. Although intentionally abstract works, these paintings all referenced extremely specific …

John Thackara|Essays

Food Journeys [November 2005]

Report on Beyond Green, RED's Future Currents project, Contested Streets, Tom Peters, Bruce Sterling's Shaping Things and more.

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Final Days of AT&T

The acquisition of AT&T by SBC will result in, among other things, the retirement of one of Saul Bass's most well-known logos. Does anyone care?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Shock Of The Old: Rethinking Nostalgia

Nostalgia has always been a bad word for designers. Like "retro" and "vintage" it smacks of a sort of been-there-done-that ennui — looking backward instead of forward, nostalgia presents as the very antithesis of the new. Even …

Michael Bierut|Essays

The Great Non-Amber-Colored Hope

A student design for a prescription pill bottle takes a metoric rise to mass production and becomes an instant icon in the world of graphic design.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Looking for Celebration, Florida

An assessment of Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company on "New Urbanist" planning principles in its tenth anniversary year.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

Married with Tchotchkes

For many design-obsessed couples registering at Moss requires more strategy than playing the stock market.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

On Citizenship and Humanity: An Appeal for Design Reform

It has been a hectic month here in the United States: a month of unspeakable hurricane devastation, two Supreme Court nominations and just this morning, a national address by our President reinforcing the White House's steadfast support of …

John Thackara|Essays

Design and Risk [October 2005]

Report on 'SAFE: Design Takes On Risks' at the MoMA, global export of weapons, natural disasters, Matchmaking in Norway, tourism in Barcelona, and more.

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

"Can you make the type bigger?"

Judging by the design blogs, the chatter at conferences and award ceremonies, and the rhetoric in the magazines, graphic design is a profession where insecurity and doubt are rife. Whenever graphic designers get together, the talk …

Rick Poynor|Essays

Where Are the Design Critics?

There is no reason why design criticism shouldn’t take an oppositional view of design's instrumental uses and its social role, but few design writers seem motivated to produce this kind of criticism.