The Mysterious Power of Context

Label for Chanel No. 5, Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel, 1921

A while ago, I was designing the identity for a large, fashion-oriented organization. It was time to decide which typeface we'd use for their name. Opinions were not hard to come by: this was the kind of place where people were not unused to exercising their visual connoisseurship...

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My Phone Call to Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman, Portrait of President John F. Kennedy, 1961

About 25 years ago, about eighteen months into my first job, I was working on the design of a brochure with my boss, Massimo Vignelli. It was some kind of corporate brochure. I don't remember what company...

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The Road to Hell: Now Paved with Innovation?

Designers don't have many advocates as enthusiastic and highly-placed as Bruce Nussbaum. An assistant managing editor at Business Week, he's spearheaded the magazine's coverage of design and innovation for years, and has become an important online voice for how business can use design as a strategic tool. That influence will only grow this week with the debut of INside Innovation, his new magazine that promises "a deep, deep dive into the innovation/design/creativity space."

I'm as intrigued as the next guy about what's to be found in the dark recesses of the "innovation/design/creativity space." But I suspect there's one fact about the genesis of this new magazine that will disturb many of my fellow innovation enthusiasts: the actual design of INside Innovation was created largely through an unpaid competition.

Designers, welcome to the brave new world of spec work.

Nussbaum has described the process of creating INside Innovation in real time on his blog with his customary ebullience...

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