Michael Bierut Recap

In his discussion on how to think like a designer, Michael Bierut presents his audience with a number of ways to solve design problems. His first example showed how poor design can be problematic. In the election between George Bush and Al Gore, for instance, many people ended up voting for the wrong candidate due to the poor layout of the ballot.  Bierut advocates that graphic design is important in all aspects of our lives. His examples range from the fashion industry, churches, signs on big glass buildings, museum branding, transportation signage and the development of an under resourced neighborhood library. Bierut presents the idea that you need to achieve what the client is looking for while at the same time achieving something new. He also stresses the importance of coming up with multiple options for a single design and keeping the target audience in mind.  As seen with his library project, Bierut shows how design can make lives better. When the librarian turned out the lights she expressed that the last light she turned off was the light that shone on the mural of the children. This design of the children reminded her why she went to work every day.