Design Observer 10th Anniversary

Michael Bierut & Jessica Helfand

Design Observer 10th Anniversary

Filmed on October 11, 2013, at “Head Heart Hand: AIGA Design Conference”

Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand celebrate Design Observer’s tenth anniversary discussing how it was conceived and what the future brings.

Michael Bierut is a partner in the New York office of the international design consultancy Pentagram. Prior to joining Pentagram he worked for 10 years at Vignelli Associates ultimately as vice president of graphic design. His clients have included The New York Times Saks Fifth Avenue the Council of Fashion Designers of America Harley-Davidson the Museum of Arts and Design  Atlantic Monthly the William J. Clinton Foundation  Billboard New World Symphony Princeton University the New York Jets the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Morgan Library and Museum.

Bierut has served as president of the New York chapter of AIGA and as AIGA president. He is an AIGA Medalist a member of the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum Design Mind Award. A senior critic at the Yale School of Art Bierut is co-founder of the website Design Observer and author of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design. He also serves as on the boards of the Architectural League of New York and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

Jessica Helfand is an award-winning writer educator and designer. A partner with William Drenttel in Winterhouse Institute and a founding editor of Design Observer she is a former columnist for Print  Communications Arts and Eye magazines and has written for numerous national publications including Aperture  Los Angeles Times Book Review and The New Republic. She is the author of several books including Screen: Essays on Graphic Design  New Media and Visual Culture; Reinventing the Wheel and Scrapbooks: An American History.

A previous appointee to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee she is also a recent laureate of the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and with William Drenttel she was the first-ever recipient of the Henry Wolf Residency at the American Academy in Rome. Helfand teaches at Yale University where she is senior critic in the School of Art and a lecturer in Yale College. In 2013 she was awarded the AIGA Medal.