Michael Bierut is a partner at Pentagram and a leading voice in the world of design.

Michael studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, worked at Vignelli Associates for ten years and, as I learned from watching him host Command X: Season 3 at the AIGA Pivot Conference, has a charming stage presence and warm sense of humor.

Michael’s take on design thinking was thoughtfully laid out. He responded by highlighting two trends he was seeing in design.

A backstage interview intermingled with video fragments at the Design Thinking Foundations project.

Designers & Books publishes lists of books that esteemed members of the international design community identify as important, meaningful, and formative—books that have shaped their values, their worldview, and their ideas about design. In doing this we hope to focus attention on how books can be important and inspired sources of creativity, innovation, and invention.

The designers who have contributed book lists are architects, car designers, fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, landscape architects, lighting designers, product designers, and urban designers—as well as practitioners in additional specialized fields of design.

Here’s a collection of interviews with distinguished designers like Michael Beirut, Paula Scher, Wim Crouwel, Jessica Helfland, and others.

CreativeMornings is a monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types. Each event is free of charge, and includes a 20 minute talk, plus coffee! Held at 20 cities around the globe now.

A bit off-topic, but amongst their ever expanding collection on Vimeo inspirational talks by various graphic designers can be found (i.a. Michael Beirut, Milton Glaser, Steve Heller, Khoi Vinh speaking at the New York chapter)

‘Looking at the design field generally in the period between 1980 and 1995—there’s the “vernacular” stuff that’s just kind of there. At the other end, there’s the esoteric avant-garde. In between there’s the corporate design. Citibank in the 70s—that was an example of the avant-garde slipping into the corporate world.’ Michael Beirut spaeks about what’s going on in corporate design. Interview with Ellen Lupton, June 16, 1994.

‘The biggest challenge that faces a designer isn’t the quest for novelty, but coming to grips with the fact that much of what we do has little content. Interview with Eye Magazine.