The Design Observer Twenty





Insights per Minute

Steven Heller
Steven Heller on Mentors
Steven Heller is the co-chair (with Lita Talarico) of the School of Visual Arts MFA Design / Designer as Author + Entrepreneur program and the SVA Masters Workshop in Rome. He is a prolific writer.


Sandra Nuut
Sandra Nuut on Fashion
Sandra Nuut is investigating spaces for contemporary fashion curation inside and beyond the museum, and is analyzing the collision between culture and commerce.


Hala Abdul Malak
Hala A. Malak on Lomo
Hala A. Malak is a design critic, curator, branding consultant, and Middle East expert with her own particular view of the world.


Frederico Duarte
Frederico Duarte on Boarding Passes
Frederico Duarte graduated from D-Crit with his thesis on the influence of social changes on product and furniture design in Brazil.


Bryn Smith
Bryn Smith on Designer Dogs
Bryn Smith is a writer, graphic designer, and critic based in Brooklyn. She writes about design for Core77, Designers & Books and L’ArcoBaleno, among others, and teaches in the graduate graphic design program at the Rhode Island School of Design.


Angela Riechers
Angela Riechers on Banks
Angela Riechers is a Brooklyn-based art director and writer specializing in design, media, and visual culture.


Brigette Brown
Brigette Brown on Umbrellas
Brigette Brown is a 2013 graduate of SVA MFA Design Criticism program who has worked for the Museum of Latin American Art, written for Disegno and Surface, researched for Metropolis, and edited a publication for Domus.


Anne Quito
Anne Quito on Quiet
Anne Quito will graduate in May 2014 from SVA’s MFA Design Criticism program. In 2009, she earned a master’s degree in Visual Culture from Georgetown University.


Anna Marie Smith
Anna Marie Smith on “Apples to Apples”
Anna Marie Smith is currently working on her MFA in Design Criticism from the School of Visual Arts, with particular interest in social media, video game design, and branding within the Young Adult demographic.


Krista Donaldson
Krista Donaldson on Users
Krista Donaldson, PhD, is a mechanical and design engineer based in San Francisco who focuses on development in less industrialized economies as CEO of the nonprofit firm D-Rev (Design Revolution).


Mariana Amatullo
Mariana Amatullo on Honesty
Mariana co-founded Designmatters in 2001. As the head of the Department, she is responsible for the strategic leadership of a dynamic portfolio of global and national educational projects, research collaborations and publications at the intersection of art and design education and social innovation.



Wendy Ju
Wendy Ju on Fun
Wendy Ju is a PhD graduate of the Center for Design Research at Stanford University, and the founder of Ambidextrous magazine, Stanford University's Journal of Design.



Enrique Allen
Enrique Allen on Introductions
Enrique Allen is currently the co-director of the Designer Fund where he provides angel funding, mentorship and connections to designers creating businesses with positive social impact.


Sean Adams
Sean Adams on Typography
Sean Adams is a partner at AdamsMorioka in Beverly Hills. Sean is President ex officio and past national board member of AIGA, and President ex officio of AIGA Los Angeles. He teaches at Art Center College of Design.


Gabriel Brodbar
Gabriel Brodbar on Iatrogenesis
Gabriel Brodbar is the Executive Director of the NYU Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship at New York University.


David Womack
David Womack on Space
David Womack is the executive creative director of experience design in the mobile and social group at R/GA. He is also on the faculty of the MFA in interaction design program at School of Visual Arts in New York.


Steff Geissbühler
Steff Geissbühler on Color Blind
Steff Geissbühler is among America’s most celebrated designers of integrated brand and corporate identity programs.


Liz Gerber
Liz Gerber on Feedback
Liz Gerber is the Junior Breed Chair of Design at Northwestern U. and Faculty Founder of Design For America.


Rob Forbes
Rob Forbes on Perfection
Rob Forbes’ career includes work in both the Arts and Business fields. Forbes is best known as the Founder of Design Within Reach and for the vision of a business that has grown into the leading retail destination for modern design in the US.


Jake Nickell
Jake Nickell on Creating
Jake Nickell is the co-founder of skinnyCorp and Threadless.com, along with a “bunch of other little projects”.


Sara Ivry
Sara Ivry on Language
Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, the weekly podcast of Tablet Magazine, and a writer who has contributed to the New York Times, Bookforum, the Boston Globe, and other publications.


J.D. McClatchy
J. D. McClatchy on Relationships
J. D. McClatchy is the author of six books of poetry and many texts for musical settings, including eight opera libretti.


Steven Heller
Steven Heller on Recommendations
Steven Heller is the co-chair (with Lita Talarico) of the School of Visual Arts MFA Design / Designer as Author + Entrepreneur program and the SVA Masters Workshop in Rome. He is a prolific writer.


John Foster
John Foster on Colloquialisms
John Foster has been a longtime collector of self-taught art and vernacular photography, as well as an artist, designer, and art curator.


Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd on Ready
Chip Kidd is a Designer/Writer in New York City. His book cover designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked non-stop since 1986, have helped create a revolution in the art of American book packaging.


Natalie Foster
Natalie Foster on Sharing
Natalie Foster is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Peers.


Adam Harrison Levy
Adam Harrison Levy on Questions
Adam Harrison Levy is a writer and film-maker. He teaches at the School of the Visual Arts. In 2012 he was a Poynter Fellow at Yale University.


Thomas Fisher
Thomas Fisher on Survival
Thomas Fisher is dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota.


Mark Lamster
Mark Lamster on Complaining
Mark Lamster is the architecture critic of the Dallas Morning News and a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Architecture.


Marvin Heiferman
Marvin Heiferman on Photography
Marvin Heiferman, a curator and writer, develops exhibitions, websites and publications that explore visual culture.


Joanna Radin
Joanna Radin on Potential
Joanna Radin is Assistant Professor in the Section for the History of Medicine at Yale University, where she also holds affiliations with the departments of History and of Anthropology.


John Maeda
John Maeda on Loops
We’re in the same loop. Culture lags. Art and design have to pick up the slack.


Wendy MacLeod
Wendy MacLeod on Fasting
Wendy MacLeod ia an award-winning playwright.


Ricky Jay
Ricky Jay on Collecting
Ricky Jay is considered one of the world's great sleight of hand artists.


Alice Twemlow
Alice Twemlow on Home
Alice Twemlow is the co-founder and chair of a two-year graduate program in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She is also a PhD candidate in the History of Design department at the Royal College of Art, London.


Nicholas Christakis
Nicholas Christakis on Networks
Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, is a social scientist and physician who conducts research on social factors that affect health, health care, and longevity.


Ralph Caplan
Ralph Caplan on Titles
Ralph Caplan is a writer and communications consultant and lectures on design. He is the former editor-in-chief of I.D. Magazine and the author of several books.


Rob Walker
Rob Walker on Seeing
Rob Walker is a technology/culture columnist for Yahoo News. He is the former Consumed columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and has contributed to many publications.


Jessica Helfand
Jessica Helfand on Brevity
Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer, writer, and educator.



Observed


Is the future of refugee housing permanence?

It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso According to Hannah Gadsby,” explores Picasso‘s legacy through a feminist lens, asking if, when, and how modern audiences can separate the artist’s work from his infamously misogynistic behavior.

Quite possibly the most fascinating job opportunity in design right now.

Jessica Helfand on using AI as a tool to reverse-engineer a historical narrative.

Rethinking the city.

Rethinking the planet.

The problems of the user interface, one streaming service at a time. More here.

Urban design, with safety in mind. And that includes parks.

Think design thinking is over? Think again.

A museum renames a vegetable still life by Van Gogh that identified the wrong kind of allium.

Graphic design and typography obsessives—look no further!

“The challenge isn’t just that our systems default to keeping the “unlike” out,” notes Jens Martin Skibsted, “but we are, rather, in need of an interconnected worldview that appreciates the existence of other realities and contexts.”

Neville Brody’s new monograph (his THIRD)—covering his work for Nike, Coca-Cola, Tate Modern and Channel 4, as well as various informational graphics and magazine editorials—will be published next month by Thames&Hudson.

Milan Design Week wants to know your most memorable experience. Ours is easily Shaped by Water, an immersive experience exploring water as a source of inspiration for design. Co-created by Ivy Ross and her design team in collaboration with the water, light, and sound artist, Lachlan Turczan. Vote for your favorite here.

Non-profit design advocacy agency Where are the Black Designers? (WATBD?) has announced a year-long partnership with digital product studio Ustwo.

“He was mulling a career in graphic design when, at 17, he saw a searing image that would change the course of his life.” The American photographer Kwame Brathwaite has died. Considered the catalyst fo the “black is beautiful” movement in the 1960s, Braithwaite’s career spanned art, music, and more. He was 85.

The subtley, simplicity, and curious symbolism of the humble serif.

After a career of looking at pictures, she is now making them. George Gendron talks to Kathy Ryan, longtime director of photography at The New York Times Magazine.

COLLINS co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Brian Collins and co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Leland Maschmeyer will speak on branding and creativity at OFFF Barcelona this weekend.

“I can’t imagine any person with a background in graphic design made that thing without a committee of bland politicians sanding away its edges until they felt safe enough to unveil that to the public.” Behold: Logogate!

Black designers, curators, and more.

How do you stop deep-sea trawlers from harming ecosystems? Commission 10-ton marble sculptures and place them on the ocean floor, of course.

For ten years, Matt Needle has reimagined every best picture award nominee by redesigning their posters.

Coca-Cola...and art?



Jobs | June 07