Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut is an American Graphic Designer, a member of AIGA and Pentagram who's work is predominantly typographic. Even though when you Google his name and the work he's done it is predominantly black and white and also typographic, it still manages to be absolutely striking, playful and clever at the same time. Let me show you what I mean...

Bierut was born in 1957 and as many of other Designers he started with album covers. He studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and since 1990 he is the member of Pentagram where 'is responsible for leading a team of graphic designers who create identity design, environmental graphic design and editorial design solutions'. He posses several Graphic Design awards and is a regular contributor to the Design Observer Magazine (which includes other famous figures, ie. Rick Poynor). After finishing his studies, Bierut was lucky and competent enough to get a job at Vignelli Associates which is an Italian Design company found by Massimo and Lella Vignelli. They are both very good designers themselves and their work includes cooperation with American Airlines, Bloomingdale's, IBM or redesigning New York Subway City map about which Bierut himself said: 'It seemed to me that the whole city of New York was a permanent Vignelli exhibition. To get to the office, I rode in a subway with Vignelli-designed signage, shared the sidewalk with people holding Vignelli-designed Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, walked by St. Peter’s Church with its Vignelli-designed pipe organ visible through the window. At Vignelli Associates, at 23 years old, I felt I was at the center of the universe.'
Massimo Vignelli died last year in May but before that, he published the Vignelli Cannon (also as a free e-book here which he described as his legacy dedicated to young designers).

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 While researching more about mr. Bierut, I have stumbled across a video that perfectly explains why is he one of the best designers. The video can be found here - it is called 5 Rules form 56 Notebooks. Below this text, you can see the five principles that he talks about summarized into rules.

As you can see, they are all slightly different than everything you'll hear at Design schools but they all make sense. Also, I still think that kindness of a human being is one of the most important things and I absolutely adore that Michael Bierut never forgets this. 

Last thing that I would recommend is taking a look on Bierut's portfolio, both the current and the old one. To see the progress and to know that even the most famous designer had to start somewhere is amazing and definitely very motivating.