Episode 54: Egos, Eggs, and Half an Onion

Even as the design profession is focused on inclusion, more than 700 vendors have expressed interest in working on a border wall between the United States and Mexico. The nicer design solutions are the more insidious ones, Michael says, and they point to

the frightening power of design, where we can take a questionable idea and, through our talents and imagination, make it seem more acceptable and more appealing.

Spoiler Alert: at 22:30 Michael and Jessica discuss the final episode of Mad Men.

Also mentioned:

Twitter Design, Rethinking our default profile photo

Anne Quito, What came first, the troll or the egg?

Trevor Noah, The new face of Twitter trolls

Half an Onion on Twitter

Independent, Facebook now has stories and everyone is making the same joke

Building the Border Wallcompetition

Can We Please Get Beyond the Building the Border Wall Boycott

Blair Kamin, Even serious designs for Trump’s border wall are hard to take seriously

George Nelson, Storagewall

Nicolai Ourousoff, At a Border Crossing, Security Trumps Openness

Cadillac’s Oscar commercial

New York, Ad-World Insiders on How the Hell That Pepsi Ad Got Made

Eric Thomas, How to make Millennials hate you, The Pepsi Way

Coca-Cola, Hilltop ad

School for Justice

Nick Douglas, Free Shipping

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By Michael Bierut & Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer and a former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Communications Arts and Eye magazines. A member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame, Helfand received her B.A. and her M.F.A. from Yale University where she has taught since 1994.