The Observatory: Land, Rand, Mad Men

On this episode, Michael and Jessica talk about a panel they participated in at Everything Is Design, the Paul Rand exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, plus the return of Mad Men and the fate of photography giants Kodak and Polaroid.

Also discussed:

• Colorforms

• Daniel Lewandowski’s Paul Rand site

• Mad Men S1E13: The Wheel on Netflix

• The New York Times article and video on the future of Kodak

• Polaroidland, a site by Instant author Christopher Bonanos

• The Mad Men monument by Pentagram partners Lorenzo Apicella, Michael Bierut, and Emily Oberman.

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Posted in: Business, Media, Photography, The Observatory

Michael Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati, and has been a partner in the New York office of Pentagram since 1990. Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.

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.

More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
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Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

Jobs | November 14