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12.15.16

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 47: True Colors

For 2016, Pantone chose Rose Quartz and Serenity as its colors of the year to evoke a “soothing sense of order and peace.” In fact, the year had harsher hues: the red of Make America Great Again hats, Trump orange, and purple for Prince’s death and Hillary Clinton’s concession.

Will 2017 be a year of Greenery, “symbolic of new beginnings”?

Also mentioned:

The Forward, Why Time’s Trump Cover Is a Subversive Work of Political Art
New York Times and Fast Company on Samsung v. Apple
Wired, How Arrival’s Designers Crafted a Mesmerizing Alien Alphabet
Drew Magary, The 2016 Hater’s Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog
Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, Seinfeldia

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More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

Episode 127: Fear and Longing
Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters; Hrishi Hirway and Mike Errico; The Quiz Broadcast; Shakespeare and Co. Project

Episode 126: Screens and Dreams
Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration; Unorthodox; My Brilliant Friend; The Affair; Anil Dash on the dangers of social media; Anna Wiener on Silicon Valley; quarantine dreams

Episode 125: Zoom Aesthetics
Zoom aesthetics and COVID-19; Kyle Chayka on minimalism; Deborah Berke on shared spaces; Jessica Salfia’s poem “The First Lines of Emails I’ve Received While Quarantining”; Megan O’Grady on artistic recluses

Episode 124: That Thing You Do
Making art and design during the COVID-19 pandemic; Christoph Niemann and Daniella Zalcman; Adam Schlesinger; spec scripts for Larry David

Episode 123: Closing Doors, Opening Doors
Looking at COVID=19: Flattening the curve, Washington Post designers Harry Stevens on visualizing social distancing, Alissa Walker on how dots are people, Stephen Sondheim at 90

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