Arts + Culture

Jessica Helfand|Essays

What We Talk About When We Talk About Design History

From the packaging of our belongings to the presentation of our surroundings, most of us recognize that design has, over the course of the past century, become a ubiquitous component in everyday life. Design is signage and graffiti and …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Freedom of Speech or Filching of Style? The New Law of Eminent Lo-Mein

Fonts found at The Dollar Store, December, 2005.There has been a considerable amount of debate recently about the impact of DIY on the design disciplines, and nowhere has this issue seemed more unresolved than in discussions of …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The D Word

Online promo for House Hunters, HGTV, 2006.People who own homes understand the true meaning of the phrase "money pit." Expenses are constant, upkeep unstoppable, and the most vexing decisions are often dominated by things you never see: …

Debbie Millman|Audio

Ellen Lupton

An interview with Ellen Lupton — writer, educator, designer and a Curator of Contemporary Design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

Robert Brownjohn and The Big Idea

Left: Robert Brownjohn. Right: Liberace. There's an essay on Liberace by art critic Dave Hickey that's so full of vivid insight that it persuaded me, on a recent trip to the US, to visit the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. Amongst other …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Civilian Typography: The Power and The Fury

Left: Cover of Spoiled, Tom Varisco, 2005; Right: Photograph by Steph Goralnik, 2005.John Updike once wrote that the "itch" to make dark marks on white paper is shared by writers and artists. As for designers, that same itch translates to …

Julie Lasky|Slideshows

Edward Hopper, Village Person

An acquaintance of mine teaches at New York University's School of Social Work. Not long ago, while I was visiting her in the department's Greek Revival mansion at 1 Washington Square North, she led me upstairs to the fourth floor with the …

Mark Lamster|Essays

Seeing Red

Red Bogart blamed technology and changing attitudes for the reason he sold Camp Tomahawk, but Mark Lamster knew there was something more to the story.

Adrian Shaughnessy|Essays

Charles Dickens and The BBC

Who would have guessed that a BBC costume drama would provide us with Exhibit-A in the defense’s case — that a mass audience can be engaged without pandering to base instincts?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Face Value

Facial transplants mapping our future: how much is the world of design responsible?

Dmitri Siegel|Essays

Bartleby™

In his classic story of Wall Street, Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville recounts the tale of a humble copyist employed by the story's narrator. Could Bartleby's perfectly crafted refrain be the appropriate response to a world where …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Cease and Design

When my daughter, Fiona, was five years old and first learning to write, she came home from school one day and set to work. Pencil gripped firmly in her tiny hand, she wrote a word — then plunked her first and second fingers down …