Mark Lombardi and the Ecstasy of Conspiracy

Detail, Mark Lombardi, George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and Jackson Stephens, ca. 1979-90 (5th version), 1999

With the 40th anniversary of the assassination of JFK freshly behind us, our abiding romance with conspiracy theories seems more ardent than ever. And one of the most remarkable expressions of that romance is on view at The Drawing Center in New York, "Global Networks," an exhibition of the work of Mark Lombardi...

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Graphic Design and the New Certainties

Graphic designers claim to want total freedom, but even in this intuitive, arbitrary, "creative" profession, many of us secretly crave limitations, standards, certainties. And certainties are a hard thing to come by these days.

I was reminded of this by several presentations at the AIGA's "Power of Design" conference in Vancouver a few weeks ago. Katherine McCoy's talk began with images of one of her own early projects, a corporation's rulebook for their janitorial crew...

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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.

Recent Video

Designing, Writing, Teaching: Not My Real Job

Michael Bierut gives an outline of his life and work: a video for a D-Crit lecture at SVA in NYC.

Recent Book

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design
Michael Bierut
Princeton Architectural Press, 2007
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