Michael Bierut: 30 Years of Pentagram

May 7th-July 3r d, 2021 Museum of Arts and Design

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MICHAEL BIERUT

“Not everything is design, but design is about everything. So do yourself a favor, be ready for anything.”

MICHAEL BIERUT

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ABOUT

Michael Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957. As a young adult, graphic design was not a popular career choice in his small town. His love of fine art, music and drawing led him down a path of exploration and curiosity.

His family lived in Garfield Heights and he attended Saturday morning classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art where he developed his drawing skills.

He later discovered the only two graphic design books in his local library: The Graphic Design Manual by Armin Hofmann and Milton Glaser: Graphic Design. He then went on to study graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning.

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MICHAEL BIERUT

In 1980, Bierut landed his first job at one of the most important design firms in the world, working for Massimo Vignelli in New York City. Working alongside legends for 10 years at Vignelli Associates, he worked his way up to the role of vice president of design before joining Pentagram as a partner in 1990.

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URBAN JUNGLE Bierut is a director of the Architectural League of New York and a member of New Yorkers for Parks. He created wayfinding signage for the Alliance for Downtown New York, assisting millions of tourists navigating the streets of Lower Manhattan. Bierut’s pieces can be seen at two New York museums, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and more around the world.

It was also in New York that he became involved with AIGA. . Bierut was president of AIGA’s AIGA’s New York chapter from 1988 to 1990 and president of AIGA from 1998 to 2001; he has since been named to the Art Directors Hall of Fame and the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

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Michael Bierut’s goal in designing, as mentioned in his book, is to use graphic design to enrich the lives of others and ultimately change the world. While at Pentagram he draws inspiration from his peer Paula Scher.

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“I had joined (Pentagram) with no staff, no clients, no experience with running my own business, and a portfolio that was dominated by my old boss’s five favorite typefaces.

Paula’s arrival was liberating. Experienced, virtuosic, outspoken, irreverent, she changed the place as soon as she walked in. Finally, I had a buddy, someone to whom I could confess my fears and ask the really stupid questions. Nothing was ever the same.”

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ON BRAND

This year marks 30 years at Pentagram for Bierut and he has changed the landscape for how we view many companies brand identities. His clients at Pentagram have included The New York Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Robin Hood Foundation, MIT Media Lab, Mastercard, Bobby Flay Bold Foods, Princeton University, the New York Jets, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Playwrights Horizons and many others.

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Identity, interiors, and wayfinding design for the airline company.

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Pentagram has designed a new visual identity for MIT Media Lab, the innovative, interdisciplinary research laboratory at MIT. The design began with designer Richard The’s 25th anniversary logo for the Media Lab, which was based on a sevenby-seven grid.

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Using that same grid, the Pentagram team generated a simple ML monogram to serve as the logo for the Media Lab. Using the same underlying grid, the designers extended that identity to each of the 23 research groups that lie at the heart of the Lab’s activity.

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As a volunteer to Hillary Clinton’s communications team, he designed the “H logo” that was used in her campaign.

He later volunteered with the Biden-Harris team and designed various signage that was used throughout their campaign.

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MICHAEL BIERUT

Bierut and his Pentagram team redesigned Billboard and its graphic identity, including its famous charts, with a new format that helps make the magazine and its in-depth information more accessible and engaging.

Designed

by

Bierut

and

Pentagram, the identity brings simplicity and clarity with an increased emphasis on the interlocking circles.

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PUBLISHED AUTHOR Bierut’s work is iconic for its simplistic, clean and inventive design aesthetic.

He doesn’t overcomplicate things and presents work in a structured and professional style.

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In an essay in Design Observer, Bierut explains that it took him half his career to realize design is really about the ability to make connections to other things. He cautions designers, young and old, to remember this above all else: “Not everything is design,” he writes.

“But design is about everything. So do yourself a favor, be ready for anything.”

MICHAEL BIERUT

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“The only thing that counts is what you’ve designed, and whether it is good or bad.”

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Sources Bierut, Michael. 2015. How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (every Once in a While) Change the World. Thames & Hudson.

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Bierut, Michael. Instagram. Accessed April 2, 2021. https://www.instagram.com/mbierut/?hl=en.

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Pentagram. n.d. Michael Bierut. Accessed April 2, 2021. https://www.pentagram.com/about/michael-bierut.

Walker, Alissa. 2006. “2006 AIGA Medalist: Michael Bierut.” AIGA | The Professional Association for Design.

Accessed April 2, 2021. https://www.aiga.org/medalist-michaelbierut.