The Design Observer Twenty





Susan Morris | Essay
Sundance/Slamdance 2023: Built Environment
Susan Magsamen + Ivy Ross | Books
Your Brain on Art: Creating Community
Don Norman | Books
Design for a Better World
The Editors | Obituary
Remembering Hugh
Momus | Essays
Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places
Connect 4 | Audio
Forest Young and Sakinah Bell: Follow Your Curiosity, Find Your Inspiration
James Biber | Essays
Vestige(s) of Empire
Alexandra Lange | Essays
Dot Supreme
Connect 4 | Audio
Jonathan Jackson and Avalon Garrick: Time for Change
Steven Heller | Essays
The Thrill is Gone: A Collector’s Lament
Alexandra Lange | Essays
Against Kickstarter Urbanism
Lorraine Wild | Essays
The Scourge of "Tuscan"
William Drenttel | Essays
I Was A Mad Man
Adrian Shaughnessy | Essays
Philosophy, Graphic Design and Virtue of Clarity
Connect 4 | Audio
Min Lew and Zaiah Sampson: Finding Your Creative Voice
| Books
Sign Painting
Jessica Helfand | Essays
Under The Microscope
William Drenttel | Essays
Penmanship: The Voice of A Future Designer
Adrian Shaughnessy | Books
Impact
Elle Luna | Report
Report from a Japanese Maid Café
Susan Morris | Essays
MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight
Bryan Finoki | Essays
Architecture vs. the People
Steven Heller | Essays
WAR! What’s it Really Good For?
Jason Grant | Essays
Against Branding: Part 1 — Design and Conflict
Connect 4 | Audio
Victor Newman and Ana Amaro: Becoming an Animator
Jessica Helfand | Essays
Why Write About Graphic Design?
Laura Scherling | Essays
How Micromobility Vehicles are Redesigning Global Transportation Systems
Sean Adams | Books
How Design Makes Us Think


Observed


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?

Don Norman‘s new book—Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity Centered—is out March 21, from MIT Press. (Watch him discussing twenty-first century design on Youtube!)

Can design be a way to say “be careful”?

While Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ is on loan, the Mauritshuis showcases 170 imaginative renditions in its place.

David Lance Goines, who “adamantly rejected the title of artist” has died. The iconic poster designer was 77.

Now you can get a Masters degree in graphic design—online!

How much do you know about “Swissness” legislation? The case of the Toblerone rebrand!

Oh, Brother (ly love)! Philadelphia needs a new ... flag?

Parisian opera house that inspired ‘Phantom of the Opera’ becomes an airbnb.

A new episode of Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!) is out for your weekend listening pleasure. On this episode George Gendron visits with the creators of the 1980s-90s interior design juggernaut — Met Home — editor Dorothy Kalins and designer Don Morris. [BV]

Celebrate the launch of Dean of Design at OCAD Dori Tunstall‘s new book, Decolonizing Design, out now from MIT Press with a launch party and conversation between Dori and Holly Harriel, Director of the MIT CoLab. [BV]

On design—and dogma. [JH]

When beauty meets grief. [JH]

Design and disability: the urban way. [JH]

History—and controversy—at Cooper Union. [JH]

Brian Collins on design clichés. [JH]

The Tate Modern’s “public” viewing area allows museum visitors to look straight into the homes of the residents of a nearby building: interested readers can nerd out on the forty-seven page ruling that explains why a design decision can fall prey to the laws of public nuisance. [JH]

Lou Dorfsman and Al D’Amato’s powerful advertisement from 1962: an appraisal. (Via Natalia Pangaro.) [JH]

Remembering Carin Goldberg. [JH]

Coming soon to The Design Museum in London, an exhibition on design and history—organized by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. [JH]

Will the future of design be collaborative? Figma’s Yuhki Yamashita thinks so. [JH]

Designers and layoffs. [JH]

Proving that America really is in crisis, the US State Department changes its official font to Calibri. Discuss! [JH]

The artist whose book covers distilled the nineteen-eighties. (via Mike Errico) [JH]

Ruth Adler Schnee, one of the more important textile designers of midcentury modernism, dies at 99. [JH]

In Denmark, thinking—and designing—out of the (grey) box. [JH]

Jerald Cooper’s aim is to make architecture and design more accessible by using layman’s language to break down barriers typically set up by white academics with advanced degrees. [JH]

Corn husks were just the start: a Mexican designer in London writes his own rules. [JH]

Wieden+Kennedy London launches standalone branding and design studio—called—NOT Wieden+Kennedy. (Play their logo generator yourself, here.) [JH]

Inclusive design, at Microsoft. [JH]

Best design stories of 2022, from The Guardian. [JH]



Jobs | March 30