Seventy-nine Short Essays on DesignSeventy-nine Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut's critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Bierut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut's intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov's Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it truth. In Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, designers and nondesigners alike can share and revel in his insights. |
Contents
| 9 | |
May Contain NonDesign Content | 11 |
2 Why Designers Cant Think | 14 |
3 Waiting for Permission | 18 |
4 How to Become Famous | 23 |
5 In Search of the Perfect Client | 28 |
6 Histories in the Making | 32 |
7 Playing by Mr Rands Rules | 35 |
42 The Rendering and the Reality | 128 |
43 What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture | 130 |
44 Colorama | 134 |
45 Mr Vignellis Map | 136 |
46 I Hate ITC Garamond | 139 |
Roots of Revolution | 142 |
48 The World in Two Footnotes | 145 |
49 Logogate in Connecticut | 148 |
8 David Carson and the End of Print | 39 |
9 Rob Roy Kellys Old Weird America | 42 |
10 My Phone Call to Arnold Newman | 44 |
11 Howard Roark Lives | 46 |
12 The Real and the Fake | 49 |
13 Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto | 52 |
Apocalypse Now Page A1 | 61 |
15 Graphic Design and the New Certainties | 63 |
16 Mark Lombardi and the Ecstasy of Conspiracy | 65 |
17 George Kennan and the Cold War Between Form and Content | 67 |
18 Errol Morris Blows Up Spreadsheet Thousands Killed | 70 |
19 Catharsis Salesmanship and the Limits of Empire | 72 |
20 Better NationBuilding Through Design | 75 |
21 The Tshirt Competition Republicans Fear Most | 77 |
22 India Switches Brands | 79 |
23 Graphic Designers Flush Left? | 81 |
24 Just Say Yes | 84 |
25 Regrets Only | 87 |
26 The Forgotten Design Legacy of the National Lampoon | 91 |
27 McSweeneys No 13 and the Revenge of the Nerds | 93 |
28 The Book Cover That Changed My Life | 96 |
Father of Hypertext | 98 |
30 The Final Decline and Total Collapse of the American Magazine Cover | 100 |
31 Information Design and the Placebo Effect | 102 |
32 Stanley Kubrick and the Future of Graphic Design | 104 |
The Designer as Auteur | 106 |
34 The Idealistic Corporation | 109 |
35 Barthes on the Ballpoint | 112 |
36 The Tyranny of the Tagline | 114 |
When Art Rises to the Level of Graphic Design | 116 |
38 To Hell with the Simple Paper Clip | 118 |
39 The Man Who Saved Jackson Pollock | 120 |
40 Homage to the Squares | 123 |
41 Eero Saarinens FortyYear Layover | 126 |
50 The Whole Damn Bus is Cheering | 151 |
51 The Best Artist in the World | 154 |
52 The Supersized Temporarily Impossible World of Bruce McCall | 157 |
53 The Unbearable Lightness of Fred Marcellino | 160 |
54 The Comfort of Style | 164 |
A Users Guide | 167 |
56 Designing Under the Influence | 170 |
57 Me and My Pyramid | 173 |
58 On Design Bullshit | 175 |
59 Call Me Shithead or Whats in a Name? | 178 |
60 Avoiding Poor Lonely Obvious | 181 |
61 My Favorite Book is Not About Design or Is It? | 184 |
This Time Its Personal | 188 |
63 Credit Line Goes Here | 191 |
64 Every New Yorker is a Target | 194 |
65 I am a Plagiarist | 197 |
66 Looking for Celebration Florida | 200 |
67 The Great NonAmberColored Hope | 204 |
68 The Mysterious Power of Context | 208 |
69 The Final Days of ATT | 211 |
70 Designing Twyla Tharps Upper Room | 215 |
71 Innovation is the New Black | 217 |
72 Wilson Pickett Design Theorist 19422006 | 220 |
73 Design by Committee | 222 |
74 The Persistence of the Exotic Menial | 226 |
Now Paved with Innovation | 230 |
76 When Design is a Matter of Life or Death | 234 |
77 In Praise of Slow Design | 237 |
78 Massimo Vignellis Pencil | 241 |
79 On Falling Off a Treadmill | 244 |
Appendix | 247 |
| 262 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adbusters advertising AIGA American appeared on Design architects architecture Arnold Newman artist asked AT&T audience Barbara Kruger Bell blog brand building bullshit called Car Talk Celebration Center color Colorama communication conference cover create cultural David design history Design Observer director Ed Ruscha editor End of Print essay famous favorite finally Fred Marcellino funny graphic design Histories of Graphic House iconic idea innovation issue ITC Garamond kind LeMessurier logo look magazine magazine’s manifesto Massimo Michael Milton Glaser modern Morris Fuller Benton movie never Nussbaum obsession package Paul Rand Paula Scher photographs political poster Press problem quote Rand’s ribbon Rick Rick Poynor Roark Robert seems simple someone Steven Heller story style tagline talking there’s things Tibor Kalman tion typeface typographic Valicenti Vignelli visual what’s writing York Yorker