01.02.20
Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 117: Truth and Yogurt


This week, Jessica and Michael discuss the trend toward chunky, serif typefaces, also known as Didones, to convey trust, authority, and good health, whether on a carton of Chobani yogurt or a wellness startup.

Jessica talks about the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between human expression and bot activity online, and the opportunity for designers to resolve that confusion:
Is it possible that a smart designer understanding transparency and truth and clarity — which is what design is, right? We are good at understanding and transmitting clarity — could there be a type of graphic or a design set of decisions in UX design, in experience design, in graphic design, that help people understand the difference between what is fake and what is real?
Michael points out that graphic designers are also
just very good at simulating things. We're good at taking things and making them look real.
Also mentioned this week:


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Posted in: The Observatory




Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer. A former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Eye and Communications Arts magazine, she is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. Jessica received both her BA and MFA from Yale University where she has taught since 1994. In 2013, she won the AIGA medal.

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