History

Andre Barnet|Books

The Age of Wreckers and Exterminators

For many people, the sudden appearance of Carson’s and Jacobs’s brilliant and prescient books was one of those moments that seem, in retrospect, to have changed the very order of things.

Steven Heller|Essays

Happiness of Chalk Talk

“Drawn lines are simple things in themselves, yet what power of expression in a few of them appropriately combined!”

Steven Heller|Essays

Cleaning Up Sanitation

The story of New York City’s Sanitation Department, the vanilla trucks, and the lower case Helvetica.

Lilly Smith|Interviews

Artifact: 2000 Palm Beach County Ballot

This article is the first in a new and ongoing Design Observer series, Artifact, which takes one piece out of AIGA’s Design Archives and asks a design expert in the topic being observed to reflect on its current impact in the …

Jessica Barness|Essays

Dancin’ to a New Tune: The Subversive, Entrepreneurial Flexi Disc

The story of the flexi disc vinyl record is an intertwining of manufacturing, form, content, and publication.

Steven Heller|Books

Vignelli’s Subway Map For Little Ones

Massimo Vignelli’s subway map, and the graphic design process, immortalized in new form: a children’s book.

Sean Adams|Evidence

The Design of Comfort

What I found in the typography of Disneyland was an incredibly dense design solution beyond typography with intentional choices to create a specific experience.

Lincoln Cushing|Essays

The Women Behind the Black Panther Party Logo

A tribute to the women who shaped the Black Panther Party Logo.

Sean Adams|Evidence

Blinded by The Light

I found the world of black light posters in late 1978, when I was in middle school. At the time, the fluorescent posters represented rebellion and a bad-ass attitude.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

Annals of Small Town Life: The Logo Stops Here

Working with Florence Knoll, Lucille McGinnis convinced her husband, Patrick B. McGinnis, that the New Haven Railroad needed a new logo. Enter Herbert Matter, Swiss-born designer, photographer and Yale professor whose own education was …

Sean Adams|Evidence

Smiley Smile

“The image we have would be impossible for Mickey Mouse to maintain. We’re just normal people.”

Steven Heller|Essays

Bury My Heart On St. Marks Place: A Sixties Memorial

The most influential period of my life happened between 1964 and 1969 (after the election and assassination of John F. Kennedy, and beginning with the Beatles and Dylan), with the revolutions in politics, civil rights, anti-war, …