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Jessica Helfand
Essays | Biography | Articles & Essays | Books | Contact

Archive: July 2005


New Models for Design Efficiency: Introducing Otto
Palimpsest, 2005. Designers: Elisabeth Prescott and Otto.

As a metaphor for the depersonalization of industry, the 1957 film Desk Set pitted humanity against automation as the central quandary of modern civilization. The film starred Spencer Tracy as an efficiency expert who introduces a mega-computer to modernize a corporate reference library. In the role of the head librarian, Katharine Hepburn's suspicions are confirmed when the computer starts spitting out pink slips along with its overly literal, and frequently inaccurate answers...

READ MORE | COMMENTS (5)
Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer and a former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Communications Arts and Eye magazines. A member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director's Hall of Fame, Helfand received her B.A. and her M.F.A. from Yale University where she has taught since 1994.


Recent Book



Scrapbooks: An American History
Jessica Helfand
Yale University Press, 2008
More Books >>


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