Blissfully on target by Gregory Thorne

MICHAELBIERUT Blissfully on target

008

Introduction 014

The Student 024

The Prodigy 052

ThePartner 070

The Teacher

Introduction. This exhibition ‘Michael Bierut. Blissfully on Target’ brings together major works by the designer that have made crucial impacts on the design world, showcasing his arsenal of creative solutions to some of the most memorable design problems and portraying the amazing impact he has had on modern designers, students and the way we visually communicate daily. Michael Bierut is a partner in the international design consultancy Pentagram and previously worked for a decade under legendary designer Massimo Vignelli where he was the head of graphic design. He is a co-founder of the online design magazine Design Observer, whose articles inform and inspire designers world wide.

But despite this Michael himself will admit, “I don’t think I’m a creative person” (Behance 99% lecture) But rather, likens himself to a doctor where the patients are the design problems and as Michael also states “the sicker the better”. Bierut does admit to being a listener, communicator and above all problem solver. Its his ability to address a client’s needs and wishes by looking past his own design preferences, by incorporating his vast knowledge of what seems like everything to do with design into these projects that makes him one of the most recognizable and influential Graphic Designers and communicators of the modern age.

He is a multi published author including a selection of the essays he wrote for Design Observer, since its founding in 2003, entitled Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007). Michael is a regular contributor to I.D. magazine and to Public Radio International’s arts program “Studio 360.” Michael is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art, and a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Yale School of Management. Among hundreds of design awards he has received is a Medal of Excellence by the AIGA, an organization for which he was the president from 1998 to 2001. Michael Bierut has been described as many things including a “Superhero of Graphic design”(Stephen Heller: Eye Magazine) and his list of achievements and clientele from Vignelli and Pentagram speak for themselves.

Architectural League of New York

New Yorkers for Parks

AIGA Medalist

Now

2006

1988 -1990

President of American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)

Yale School of Art

1980

1980: Vignelli Associates

Partner Pentagram

AIG Art Directors Club Hall of Fame

1990

2003

Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design Design Mind Award Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

2007

2008

Design Observer is launched

Ellected to Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI)

Intern for Chris Pullman at WGBH

1978

1989

Graphic design at University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning

High School

Michael Bierut Born Parma, Cleveland Ohio

1975 -1979

1957

The student. Michael Bierut was born in 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio in the United States of America. At high school Bierut expressed a keen interest in design and was very intent on exploring his talents for fine arts from an early age. In an interview with Design Boom he stated “as an enthusiastic young high school artist 40 years ago, I found that I was happiest when I could use my artistic skills in the service of some practical goal… I was also always interested in lots of things, particularly reading and books. I found graphic design to be a perfect way to combine art, usefulness, and literacy.” Although he recognized his talents early Beirut was oblivious to the career aspirations that he possessed. At the time Graphic Design, as a career aspiration, was not heavily promoted to the young adults of Ohio. In an interview with Stephen Heller for Eye Magazine Bierut describes when he realised he wanted to become a Graphic designer “Because I drew well, I was the guy who always designed the logo for the clubhouse or painted the band’s name on the drum. I didn’t know it had a name until I found a book by [ former CBS art director] S. Neil Fujita in the school library. It was part of a series called something like Your Future in …Cosmetology, or Garbage Disposal, or Plumbing, and there was one called Your Future in Commercial Art/ Graphic Design. Up to that moment I thought this stuff got done by Robert Rauschenberg or Franz Kline or Frank Stella banging it out on a Saturday; they’d put aside the paintings with the slashes and the stripes, and do a Three Dog Night cover. When I found out it had a name – I was fifteen years old – I went to the Parma Regional Library in Ohio and looked up graphic design in the card catalogue.

They had one book: Graphic Design Manual by Armin Hofmann.” Michael was hypnotized by all the pictures of dots and squares and after repeatedly borrowing the book from the library he visited a department store in downtown Cleveland to purchase his own copy. Instead of Hofmann’s book he was lead to a brand new publication called Graphic Design by Milton Glaser, with Bob Dylan on the Cover. The two books were diametrically opposed and Bierut found himself at a crossroads between Modernism and Eclectism. And these two pieces of opposing Design literature would play an important role in sculpting Bierut’s design outlook in the future. Certainly these two represent the two sides of the communication coin, Modernism vs Postmodernism. After leaving high school Bierut attended the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. A school where coincidentally most of the instructors were either born in Switzerland and had studied with Hofmann or had studied at Yale. He describes it as “a very Yale-Swiss kind of education – rather than the Glaser tradition.” Bierut’s education at university allowed him to explore a range of media and design movements. After completing his education he approached Vignelli associates with the final product of his studies, his portfolio. He revisited his job-winning portfolio in an article he wrote entitled “May I show you my portfolio” in Design Observer 2007.

I believe it was this piece that got me the job at Vignelli Associates. The assignment was to design a brochure for commercial label papers. Each page a square, a simple 2x2 grid, one size of Helvetica in two weights: quintessential International Style modernism straight out of the tube. More surprising to me, and dismaying as well, is how eerily the cropped label artwork anticipates the packaging I was to do for Saks Fifth Avenue nearly 30 years later. It’s sobering to realize how trapped I am by my own handwriting…….. It’s easy to assume that one grows in selfconfidence over the course of a life in design, and in many ways I have. But looking back to 1979, I’m struck by how much nerve I had back then. Part of maturing as a designer is discovering what you’re good at. Inevitably, you become biased towards what you know will work. In unknown territory lurks the risk of failure. Back then, I was too naive to know what risk was, and too enthusiastic to dream I’d be slowed by any obstacle. I’m older and wiser now, and, maybe, sounder and safer. Is it too late to take up crosshatching again?”

Un ive rs B od on i

u F

THE PRODIGY.

a r tu

The prodigy. Michael Bierut spent 10 years working for Massimo Vinelli at Vinelli Associates. Massimo is a celebrated Modernest graphic designer who is very outspoken about design and is famously quoted saying that there are only 5 typefaces that designers need to use. The influence Massimo had over Bierut is one of strict structures, balanced asymmetry and simplistic style elements and typefaces. Vignelli expected his employee to be an extension of himself and his fingerprint can be seen in much of Michaels work from his time at Vignelli Associates. “Probably the most interesting thing I learned is that a lot of the things about design that tend to get designers really interested aren’t that important,” Bierut once said to Steven Heller. Bierut acknowledges that people might not actually read the annual reports and corporate brochures that designers make. So he strives to make things that people are able to read and want to read, “All the attention designers give to clever layouts and putting the page numbers in a cool place, when ordinary people just want to read the words and look at the pictures. Massimo taught me to focus on the big ideas, and I thought that big ideas were what connected with the greatest number of people.”(Bierut,M, 2013) At the beginning of his time with Massimo, Michael would work all day as a graphic designer, travel home to have dinner with his wife, then return to Vignelli to work the night shift. It was his unrivaled drive and dedication that Massimo Vignelli acknowledged when promoting Bierut to Head of Graphic Design where he would lead a team of designers for the duration of his time there.

Being the Knowledge-hungry man that he is, Michael Bierut wanted to achieve more with his talent. “Massimo’s point of view is that cluttered or self-conscious design bespeaks some sort of moral failing. But I never felt that. I always believed that if you have the time to show you were awake while you were designing, then, why not?” (Bierut,M, 2007) It was upon attending an AIGA lecture session that Michael Bierut met Paula Scher who was to become his Partner at Pentagram. He was inspired by her outlook on graphic design and her rebellious attitude towards the traditional ideas and approach compared to that of strict modernists such as his own masters. “Paula is a perfect example of the anti-Vignelli approach in the purest way. I remember Massimo and I going to a presentation where she spoke. I just loved her work. It was exactly what made me go into graphic design in the first place. We came out, and I said, “Man, Paula is great.” And Massimo said, “All that novelty stuff and those Victorian typefaces, that’s not the way to do it.” And I said, “Massimo, if you design 200 album covers a year, you have to be eclectic. You can’t just do all the classical ones in Garamond and all the rock ones in Futura.” And Massimo, of course, said, “That would be fantastic!” Paula’s kind of virtuosity really spoke to me deep down inside.” (Bierut,M, 2013)

The partner.