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06.21.18

Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand | Audio

Episode 83: Post-Its and Blocks

Michael and Jessica talk about the latest flare-up in the Design Thinking wars, beginning with Lee Vinsel’s article There’s So Little There There: A Response to the Stanford d.school’s Defense of Design Thinking. Jessica agrees with Vinsel that there is an “Emperor’s New Clothes” quality to design thinking:

He’s basically coming back to language, simplicity, clarity, honesty… Design Thinking, how dare it coopt language that speaks for us all? How dare it say that, in order to be empathetic, in order to be empathize, you have to follow this quid pro quo process.

Michael says that

It’s tempting and fun to piss all over design thinking, but I know a lot of smart effective designers, not just well-intentioned but actually really successful professionals, who take design thinking really seriously.

Also mentioned this week:

Natasha Jen, Design Thinking Is Bullshit
Lee Vinsel, Medium, Design Thinking is Kind of Like Syphilis — It’s Contagious and Rots Your Brains
Vinsel, Chronicle of Higher Education, Design Thinking is a Boondoggle
Lilly Irani, Catalyst, “Design Thinking”: Defending Silicon Valley at the Apex of Global Labor Hierarchies
Roger Martin, The Design of Business
Alexandra Lange, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids
Jessica on the Incredibles (Design Observer, 2004)
Christopher Bonanos, Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous

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More from Michael Bierut + Jessica Helfand

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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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