Looking Closer 4 ─ Critical Writings on Graphic Design

The most stimulating installment yet in the acclaimed Looking Closer series! This enthralling collection of essays assembles some of the most intriguing critical commentary published in professional and general interest design magazines from 1997 to 2000. Over thirty contributors, including Rick Poynor, Kathy McCoy, Lorraine Wild, Veronique Vienne, Jessica Helfand, and others discuss such important contemporary themes as the rise and fall of the dot.coms and its influence on salary expectations, the ongoing controversy over the First Things First Manifesto, the call for greater responsibility in the design profession, and the antibranding protests that ignited demonstrations during recent World Trade Organization meetings.



From current events to design principles, and aesthetics to ethics, graphic designers everywhere will savor this anthology of fresh perspective.

Michael Bierut is a partner in the New York office of the international design consultancy Pentagram. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1957, Bierut studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, and graduated in 1980. Prior to joining Pentagram in 1990, he worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates, ultimately as vice president of graphic design. In 1991, he and his partner Paula Scher chaired the AIGA national conference in Chicago. He was president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1988 to 1990 and is currently a member of the AIGA's national board. He has also been director of the American Center for Design. In addition, he has designed identity and environmental graphics for a new children's museum in St. Paul, Minnesota; coordinates all promotional material for the Brooklyn Academy of Music; and serves as graphic design consultant to Mohawk Paper Mills, where he is responsible for corporate identity, packaging, and advertising and edits ReThinking Design, a journal of critical perspectives.