10 Facts About Jessica Helfand

Jessica Helfand received her BA in 1982 and her MFA in 1989, both from Yale University.

Jessica Helfand is the daughter of the late collector William H Helfand.

For more than twenty years, Jessica Helfand taught at Yale University, where she was senior critic in graphic design, the artist in residence at the Yale Institute for Network Science, a faculty affiliate in the history of science and medicine, and a lecturer in Yale College.

Jessica Helfand was a visiting professor at Wesleyan University and at Paris College of Art.

Jessica Helfand has written for many national publications, including the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Aperture, and The New Republic.

Jessica Helfand is the author of numerous books on design and cultural criticism, including Paul Rand: American Modernist, Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media and Visual Culture and Reinventing the Wheel, which formed the basis for an exhibit in 2004 at the Grolier Club in New York City.

Jessica Helfand's critically acclaimed Scrapbooks: An American History was named "the best of this year's gift books" by The New York Times.

Jessica Helfand was a 2018 Director's Guest at Civitella Ranieri, a 2019 fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation, and the 2020 Artist in Residence at the California Institute of Technology.

Jessica Helfand spoke at Cooper Hewitt in 2019 as part of an exhibition featured in that year's London Design Biennale ; at Caltech in 2023, and later that same year, in an online symposium sponsored by the Royal College of Art in London.

Jessica Helfand is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and the Art Director's Hall of Fame.