Customer Reviews

Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture

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Design on the screen takes the shape of websites, animation, motion graphics, and oh yeah... television. Long before the Mac and Windows boxes on your desk moved points of light, the television was doing it. In Screen, Helfand continues her critical review of all that is visually projected at us through flat screen monitors and television sets. In this collection of essays and critiques, the overall feeling is cynical and embittered. Helfand directly challenges the designers of screen spaces and interfaces to take a stand and make decisions using technology as a secondary objective. Use the pixels, don't let them use you. It's a boastful book, one that'll make you wonder what more can be done.

Although the amount of writing about design has grown remarkably over the last several years, only a small bit of it is actually any good. And while I think an increased amount of discourse is generally a positive thing, I think in design's case we've come to the proverbial fork in the road. On one side, there's the swaggering, portfolio-bloated, semi-literate design monographs of the last several years. On the other side, there's truly critical, topical, didactic design writing whose words aren't just there as dummy text. If this latter direction is the one in which our discourse wishes to travel, then we should all take a page out of Jessica Helfand's glorious new book, Screen. For literate designers who've come down with cabin fever over the last few years, Ms. Helfand's book is like taking a spin around the neighborhood, touching on topics from Victorian cultural history to Media Studies and everything in between. Meticulously considered and reconsidered - many of these essays were first published elsewhere - Screen reminds us that writing about a field as simultaneously aesthetic and analytic as design takes time and effort. In turn, our time and effort should be spent on these thoughtful essays, for they are a both a gift and a direction from one of the very best we have.

This book was written in 2001, and it shows. This book was assigned reading in one of my courses in grad school. Lots of "big" ideas are brought forward in this book, and Helfland philosophizes an industry that is saturated with a lot of How-to nuts 'n bolts books and little theory.

The book however is out of touch, rife with buzzwords, and is quickly losing relevancy. I was particularly irked by the essay that compares Television to the Web, arguing that all the qualities - and shortcomings - of the Web were "done first" by Television.

The author displays a kind of starry-eyed wonder at all things "new media" but the relevancy of that to professionals working in "new media" industries is debatable.

Chances are you will find yourself saying (or just thinking) "Exactly! I've been saying that for years!" fairly often. Helfand expresses views on the design world that many designers have felt for some time, particularly in regards to new media and digital culture. These essays cover everything from the overflow of badly designed websites to eloquently phrased explanation of why designers are not information architects (unlike architecture, design won't kill you if it falls on your head). This is a must-read for designers of any medium, especially those in the video, web, and new media fields.

Along with the self-aggrandizement in new media design, one has also to endure the academic collective of critical review for that very topic. After finishing Jessica Helfand's Screen Essays, my thoughts focused on abandoning the semiotic silliness, and just getting on with work. There will always be the ridiculous to rip apart, and the 1990's proved to be filled with perfect targets. However, it was also a wild time for experimentation. Do we really need to hear an opinion while the game is still being played out?

I just about threw the book into the ocean while reading "On Sound, Authenticity and Cultural Amnesia". A few comments from the book on the use of sound with visuals: "It interrupts interpretation. It brainwashes the audience.". I don't know, perhaps those of us with more emotional aspiration, or those that simply can't see visuals would take issue with this critique.

When it comes down to it, the market decides what is good use of form, and what is more or less useless. Try not to let an academician tell you what your customer needs or wants.

On a positive note, the writing is very good. I wonder if editors were in short supply during the late 1990's...

The advance reviews say it all:

"Jessica Helfand is a rare thing: an extraordinary designer who writes well. Her insights on design and new technologies are important reading for any serious designer." - Hugh Dubberly

"Writers on technology in two categories: dreamy aphoristic visionaries or incomprehensible jargon-spouting nerds. Jessica Helfand is neither. Her writing is graceful, vivid and down-to-earth. She is a thoughtful assessor of design in the 20th century, and an indispensible guide to how we will communicate in the 21st." - Michael Bierut

"Jessica Helfand writes about design the way M.F.K. Fisher wrote about food and Randall Jarrell wrote about poetry. Not only is she knowledgable, canny, eloquent, brimming with provocative opinions and classical good sense; she is also an exceptional practitioner of the very thing she so keenly
observes." - Chip Kidd

"This book captures the concerns designers face in dealing with a techno-biased world -- it is invaluable fuel that will guide design endeavors." - Clement Mok

"Jessica Helfland is an intelligent writer who does not have to show off how intelligent she is, which makes her incredibly intelligent." - Stefan Sagmeister

"Jessica Helfand's ability to observe carefully and see clearly; consider context and audience; and then craft her writing adroitly, with grace and style is nearly unparalleled in critical design writing today." - Richard Grefé, executive director, AIGA

"These essays form one of the first significant books dedicated specifically to critical issues in interactive electronic communications design. Design educators will find this book insightful and reflective." - Katherine McCoy, senior lecturer, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology

"I never thought of it that way" is a phrase that occurs frequently in one's mind reading these provocative essays. Ms. Helfand is thoughtful about the subject of design but manages to be entertaining at the same time." - Milton Glaser

"Jessica Helfand writes about design the way M.F.K. Fisher wrote about food and Randall Jarrell wrote about poetry. Not only is she knowledgable, canny, eloquent, brimming with provocative opinions and classical good sense; she is also an exceptional practitioner of the very thing she so keenly
observes." - Chip Kidd

"Jessica Helfand writes with an original voice and an open mind, avoiding hype and debunking myths." - Red Burns, chair, Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

"Jessica Helfand is one of design's most thoughtful essayists; she elevates the young field of design criticism through well-reasoned analysis, respect for history, and approachable writing. This book will stay on design students' reference lists long after the course is over." - Meredith Davis, professor and chair, graphic design, North Carolina State University

"Jessica Helfand strides across the landscape as that rarest of creatures: a designer who can write. Make that a writer who can design. However parsed, she joins a select group -- including Paul Rand and the Eameses -- who have been able to explain the visible world." - Randall Rothenberg, media columnist, Ad Age

"Jessica Helfand's essays on digital media find the nexus of design and popular culture in a manner unique in contemporary design criticism. Her spirited prose and lucid insights contribute a new dimension to the often confounding world of virtual space." - Steven Heller, editor, The Education of an E-Designer.

"If "reading is your ticket to the world," this book is your ticket to the design world. Sub-text, context . . . great text." - Tucker Viemeister, industrial designer

"From "real time" to "virtual space," the core clichés of digital media are elegantly but relentlessly challenged by Jessica Helfand. Her provocations suggest ways to explore the immense possibilities that lie beneath the surface glibness of "new" media." - Brenda Laurel, author, Utopian Entrepreneur (MIT, Fall 2001).

"Jessica Helfand's essays will open your eyes. They don't peddle a flashy general theory, but offer subtle analysis and nuanced insights derived from long, engaged experience." - William J. Mitchell, dean, School of Architecture, MIT

"Jessica Helfand is one of the most clear-headed, incisive writers working today in the amorphous area of `cyber research.' In place of grand abstractions and utopian pronouncements, she offers solid criticism grounded in the philosophical, social, and aesthetic implications of new media." - Ellen Lupton, curator, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Musuem, and chair, Department of Graphic Design, Maryland Institute College of Art