04.13.17
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

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

  • Subscribe to The Observatory on iTunes or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Soundcloud.

    Posted in: Arts + Culture, The Observatory




    Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

    Jobs | November 14