Michael Bierut 30 Years 90 Notebooks September 25, 2011—January 22, 2012

Gallery Reception: Friday, September 30, 5:00-7:00 p.m. Lecture: Friday, September 30, 7:00 p.m., Saint Joseph Auditorium, 985 Madison Avenue, Albany

Graphic designer Michael Bierut has recorded his work and thoughts in a series of identical notebooks dating back to 1982. Today there are over 90 of these notebooks. In this exhibition of work stretching over three decades, finished pieces are juxtaposed with a selection of Bierut's notebooks. Viewers can make connections between original, very rough sketches and finished work, and gain insight into the design process as a result.

Michael Bierut has been a partner in the New York office of the international design consultancy Pentagram since 1990. He is also a senior critic at Yale School of Art, co-founder of the online publication Design Observer and author of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design. Bierut served as national president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) from 1998 to 2001. He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is held in major museum collections.
  

Commemorative Exhibition Poster

Michael Bierut has designed a commemorative poster for the exhibition that will be on sale at the gallery during the September 30 reception and the run of the exhibition.

MICHAEL BIERUT studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, graduating summa cum laude in 1980. Prior to joining Pentagram in 1990 as a partner in the firm's New York office, he worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates, ultimately as vice president of graphic design.

Bierut's clients at Pentagram have included the Alliance for Downtown New York, Benetton, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Alfred A. Knopf, the Walt Disney Company, Mohawk Paper Mills, Motorola, MillerCoors, the Toy Industry Association, Princeton University, Yale School of Architecture, New York University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Sex, and the New York Jets. His projects have ranged from the design of "I Want to Take You Higher," an exhibition on the psychedelic era for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, to serving as design consultant to United Airlines.

Bierut's recent activities have included the development of a new identity and signage for the expanded Morgan Library and Museum; the development of environmental graphics for The New York Times Building; the design of an identity and public promotion for Philip Johnson's Glass House; the creation of marketing strategies for the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation; the development of a new brand strategy and packaging for luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue; and the redesign of the magazine The Atlantic.

Bierut is a Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art. He is co-editor of the anthology series Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design, published by Allworth Press, and in 1998 he co-edited and designed the monograph Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist. He is a co-founder of the weblog Design Observer and his commentaries about graphic design in everyday life can be heard nationally on the Public Radio International program "Studio 360." His book Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2007.

For additional images and information, visit http://www.pentagram.com/partners/#/20/.