Dear Bonnie


Bonnie Siegler
Rapid Fire
Our own Bonnie Siegler takes your questions



Bonnie Siegler
Frightened in Fort Lauderdale
The benefits of being scared



Bonnie Siegler
Unsure in Utica
Measuring up — or not


Bonnie Siegler
Naive in Norwalk
Dear Bonnie doles out some homework


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie
Baffled in Buffalo



Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Fretting in Fredericksburg
This week Dear Bonnie gives an unhappy designer advice on contracts, fees, and client management.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Lost in London
Are you as good as you think you are? Is your job?


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Lost in Louisville
This week, Dear Bonnie highlights the importance of good communication ... and manners.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Helpless in Hermosa Beach
This week Dear Bonnie turns the answering over to contest winner Erica Heinz, who encourages readers to “work collaboratively, without the need for recognition.”


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Deals in Dillon + A Giveaway
This week Dear Bonnie reminds us that design should never be sold by the pound.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Nervous in Nantucket
This week Dear Bonnie encourages a new-ish employee to speak up!


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Dissed in Denver
This week Dear Bonnie reminds a 19 year old intern what it means to be a 19 year old intern.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Partnering in Peoria
What questions do you ask to start a business partnership off right? Dear Bonnie has a few. 


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Wondering in Westport
This week Dear Bonnie advises a do-everything-wonder-kid about his portfolio.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Aggrieved in Atlanta + Bumming in Brooklyn
Advice for designers who receive unsolicited opinions from friends and those whose clients have bad taste.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Lost on Long Island + Stuck in Schenectady
This week Dear Bonnie tackles what to do when your client stops returning your calls, and how to get your brain moving.



Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Cringing in Charleston
This week Dear Bonnie gets to the heart of the conundrum that is graphic design. Designers represent the needs of both art and commerce, which means they serve many masters.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Reeling in Rotterdam + Apprehensive in Austin
This week Dear Bonnie tackles clients who don't pay and clients who think you've stolen a logo. Excellent advice from Bonnie Siegler.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Taunted in Tehran
This week Dear Bonnie answer Taunted in Tehran about proper credits when you've collaborated with a group, but one person runs off with the idea.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Mixed up in Martinsville
This week Dear Bonnie answers Mixed up in Martinsville about how to deal with clients without burning bridges. The key: written agreements.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Frustrated in Florida
This week's advice from Dear Bonnie focuses on how to handle on those people who think graphic design is as easy as a 1-2-3 click.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Confused in Connecticut
This week's advice from Dear Bonnie deals with aloof clients: Are they too cool or embarrassedly avoiding your questions because they just don't know the answers?


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Women of Washington + Young in Youngstown
This week's advice from Dear Bonnie focuses on women: are there enough women represented on jury panels, in board rooms, anywhere; and is there any specific advice for young female designers?


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Cheated in Chicago
This week Dear Bonnie — our truth-telling advice column from Bonnie Siegler — advises independent artist "Cheated in Chicago" on the best course of action when her work is being used by a large brand without her permission.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Trapped In Toledo + Desperately Seeking Designers
This week Dear Bonnie — our truth-telling advice column from Bonnie Siegler — advises Trapped In Toledo on how to win over his client's communications officer and Desperately Seeking Designers on finding talented, deserving young hires.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Tips for Toyland
This week Dear Bonnie — our truth-telling advice column from Bonnie Siegler — takes a lok at the pitfalls of casual letter writing.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Bullied in Brighton
This week Dear Bonnie tackles bullying at the office.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Interested in India + Window Dressing in Wisconsin
This week Dear Bonnie tackles online vs. offline design studios, client retention and the future of retail window dressing.


Bonnie Siegler
Dear Bonnie: Troubled in Techworld + Befuddled in Buffalo
Our first Dear Bonnie — a new truth-telling advice column from Bonnie Siegler.



Observed


A number of prominent—and progressive—initiatives that once promised to attract women and people of color to the tech industry (including Girls In Tech and Women Who Code) are closing. Three reporters at The Washington Post dig in: “The drop in support for programs that tech companies once touted as a sign of their commitment to adding women, Black people and Hispanic people to their ranks follows a right-wing campaign to challenge diversity initiatives in court.”

Celebrating Black Business month with two inspiring design legends, Kevan Hall and TJ Walker – the founders of the Black Design Collective.

Book cover design is a careful navigation between creativity and brute-force market logic. But is it also inherently racist?

Designer's weigh in on … the Olympics!

Billed as a “color trend intelligence service,” Pantone Color Insider provides global data on use of all 15,000 shades in the company color matching system. This year's color? Peach Fuzz!

Lunacy on LinkedIn.

Brian Johnson—one of the founders of BIPOC Design History,  Creative Director at Polymode, and a member of the Monacan Indian Nation — has spent years researching Indigenous design in an effort to help decolonize graphic design by speaking to the field’s racial biases. Links to his essays for Hyperallergic  (including the brilliantly-titled How Can a Poster Sing?) are here.

Bring Them Home is a documentary film that highlights a small group of Blackfoot people on their mission to establish—on their own ancestral territory—the first wild buffalo herd since the species’ near-extinction a century ago, an act that would restore the land, re-enliven traditional culture, and bring much-needed healing to their community. The film, directed by Blackfeet (Niitsitapi/ Siksikaitsitapi) siblings Ivan and Ivy MacDonald alongside filmmaker Daniel Glick, has just won a climate justice award.

What knots in our histories do we need to disentangle? What future relationships do we need to re-weave? Who and what is missing from the connections we make and unmake with our systems and technologies? Spend two days this month in Sweden at The Conference and "you’ll walk away with new mindsets and materials, teachings and tools, practices and parallels to help get us out of “oh fuck,” and into “now what?”  

There are only 75 Māori architects among New Zealand's roughly 2,000 licensed practitioners (and fewer than 10 Pacific Islanders), despite these Indigenous groups making up more than 25 per cent of the country's population—but Elisapeta Heta is one, and she's got something to say about this—and why it matters. "It's no wonder that our built environments don't necessarily reflect who we are as people," she observes. "There's no diversity in it because it's all been designed through the same Western lens."

Through his charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Michael Bloomberg is giving $175 million each to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, and Howard University College of Medicine in Washington. These donations are believed to be the largest ever to any single H.B.C.U.

An indigenous design camp for teenagers is the first of its kind in the United States (or maybe anywhere). The goal is to teach Indigenous teens about the range of career options in architecture and design, a field where Native Americans are notably underrepresented.

The functional design elements of the new Michael Graves Design for Pottery Barn collection leverage ethnographic research across several communities, from those aging in place, to individuals with permanent, situational, or temporary disabilities, to those who are planning for the future without compromise, and those who want their homes to be welcoming to everybody, all without sacrificing good design.

“There is no doubt that domestic harmony is endangered by having a designer about,” Mr. Grange told The Daily Telegraph in 2012. “If you are good at your job you cannot avoid looking at everything and, given half a chance, affecting it. I even have an opinion about a tea towel — I just cannot help it.” British industrial designer (and Pentagram co-founder) Sir Kenneth Grange has died. He was 95. 

It's August! You may be heading out on that much-needed vacation! And how will you get there? Map lovers—and travelers all—rejoice! And look no further.

Did you know there is a way to dig in deep to stories about the Olympics that are design-focused? You do, now!

A design-focused conversation about coding, communication, and the beauty of simplicity.

TBD*—the  in-house design studio of the CCA in San Francisco—is looking for local nonprofit/civic partners needing design help this coming fall. Details here.

What does it mean to bestow a “good design” award in today’s design landscape—especially within the context of public space?

A logo conspiracy theory—about the Olympics?

The recent handoff from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris obliged the campaign's designers to launch a new Harris for President logo in just three hours: they also crafted an entire brand refresh—including ads and print collateral AND a website—all of which they built out in just over a day. More on this massive (and speedy) undertaking here.

Our friends at WXY Architecture and Jerome Haferd Studio are among four firms that have won a competition to design a series of cultural venues for historic Africatown in Alabama.

“Our mascot, Phryges, is based on the Phrygian hat, which is a powerful emblem in France on everything from coins to stamps. Phryges is gender-free, which feels appropriate because this is the society we live in. Toys should be for everyone, and not gendered.” An interview with Joachim Roncin, the designer of the Paris Olympics.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently announced that it would eliminate the term “equity” from its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) language. “What organizations like SHRM may or may not realize is that abandoning the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion causes real harm and serious pain,” says Amira Barger. “By sidelining equity, SHRM’s move may unintentionally exacerbate something called ‘dirty pain.’”

“As a person who spent the first part of my career as a graphic designer and art director, I immediately saw the visual power and nearly infinite graphic possibilities of this image.” In today's New York Times, Charles Blow discusses the irrefutable power of an iconic photograph.

In New York City, The Design Trust for Public Space is looking for photographers with “unique lenses on an equitable water future for New York”. Deadline for entry is 11 August. More here.

One artist's (musical) cry for help—or at least, fewer fast-food franchises in North Adams, Massachusetts.

“My design philosophy is to make people happy and comfortable in their environment,” says the 83-year old Irish designer known simply by her first name—Clodagh. “Since I don’t know the rules, I can actually break them all the time.” 

Design for accessibility, blessedly, is on the minds of architects and builders all over the world. Given the fact that an estimated 15-20% of the population is neurodivergent, commercial buildings are increasingly working to become more welcoming, inclusive, and comfortable for all individuals.

“While designers are eager for praise and acclaim and create an aura of ostensibly cultured and intellectual pursuit, often involving awards and accolades, design itself takes no responsibility for what happens when things go wrong.” An excerpt from Manuel Lima's latest book.  



Jobs | November 06