Designing Through the Recession

Lester Beall, Poster for the Rural Electrification Administration, 1937

It actually doesn't seem that long ago that the only problem was getting all the work done and finding people places to sit. Back in the middle of that seemingly endless string of 60-hour-work-weeks, not one, not two, but (um) several clients called to ask if I wouldn't mind billing them in full, in advance, for work we hadn't yet begun, just so they could commit their budgets and get the money off their books. And then at least one of them just seemed to forget about the project altogether.

I mentioned to this at the time to a friend who's been a hedge fund manager from before the time when anyone had ever heard of hedge funds...

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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.

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