Dear Ms Rense,
I cannot tell you in the manner of your usual correspondents in AD Letters that I really value your magazine. If it were not for the fact that it is delivered to my office each month, the subscription predating me, I would not give it the time of day.
However, I must say that the cover of the January 2010 issue really caught my eye. The headline The World's 20 Greatest Designers of All Time led me to wonder how you arrived at this conclusion and if your statement did not even for one second bring to mind the classic definition of hubris?
Nonetheless, let me say how edifying I find it that you have allowed three Europeans on the list but the strangeness, as I see it, of your choices led me to wonder if your list was limited to twenty members of your stable of designers and if your gaze did not range wider than that. Strangely America-centric choices, Ms Rense, for a magazine that styles itself as The International Magazine of Design.
Where are John Fowler, Stephane Boudin, David Mlinaric, Albert Pinto, Billy Baldwin et al? Strange choices, Ms Rense, strange choices! That you included Geoffrey Bennison, Kalef Alaton and Mark Hampton serves you well, and I am glad to see Arthur Elrod, virtually unknown today, on the list. Were there no Asians or Antipodeans that could have been considered? Did you not consider any designers who are still living?
Having said all that, let me tell you that the design of the cover is a classic piece of beautiful graphic design.
Sincerely,
Blue
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