Design Observer Twenty Years 2003-2023





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We collect personal information when you provide it to us by sending an email to us or signing up to receive a newsletter or posting comments.

We may disclose and use personal information in special circumstances when it is necessary to enforce our User Agreement or this Privacy Policy, or when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires us to disclose your personal information to third parties. This policy does not protect information you post to any on-line comment board, chat room, newsgroup, job board or other public forum within the Design Observer Group Sites.

The personal information we collect from you is stored on our data host’s secure servers. Within Observer, only authorized personnel have access to your information. Despite our best efforts, no transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Therefore, you provide us with your personal information at your own risk.

The Design Observer Group Sites contain many links to other sites on the Internet. Observer cannot control and is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such other web sites.

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Observer’s Privacy Policy may be revised or updated at any time and we encourage you to check back often to ensure that you are familiar with the most recent version and the terms of our Privacy Policy.

The Design Observer Twenty: Our Partners


Observed


At 10 AM today,  Wednesday, October 4, show your support for libraries and the freedom to read on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and more. Use the hashtag #FreedomToRead to share why open access to books, information, and knowledge is important to you or your community. More here.

On nurturing creativity in children—and for the rest of us.

The future of design education—a compendium of writings by a powerhouse roster of seasoned educators and practitioners—and downloadable here.

Architect Beverly Willis, who got her start as a designer in Hawaii, where she studied fresco painting under the painter and muralist Jean Charlot, has died. She was 95.

Horace Ové, considered the first Black director to make a feature-length film in Britain (and knighted for his services to media) has died. The Trinidadian photographer and filmmaker was 86.

Did you know the iconic Mini Cooper owes its design inspiration to a Greek designer? You do now!

“Doesn’t it just scream “lived-in”? Probably because I was screaming so maniacally while bludgeoning it with my spoon.” A three year old takes on interior design, via McSweeneys. 

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month? Dial it back, says the design columnist at the Los Angeles Times. “What I’m not celebrating is the related graphic design, which is often a pastiche of brightly-colored patterns and stylized decorative fonts with awful names like ‘Taco Modern.’”

Rami Al-Ali becomes the first Syrian designer to be recognized by the Business of Fashion list.

Want to fully embrace the circular economy? “The design industry needs to let go of its obsession with the new and start venerating the patina of age,” says Katie Treggiden.

The world’s oldest shoes — sandals, actually — have been found in a cave in Spain. Estimated to be 6,200 years old, the elegant weave and classical details took the wearer from day to night in comfort and style.

AI and regulating the use of actor likenesses move front and center as contract talks continue in Hollywood. (Here is SAG-AFTRA’s dental plan information.)

No, Tom Hanks is not trying to sell you an affordable dental plan. (It’s an AI deep fake video.)

Trauma-informed design “realizes how the physical environment affects individuals, recognizes that it can have a physiological and emotional impact,” In Pittsburgh, thinking about housing, dignity, and more.

“Instead of rooms or units, each resident gets a “home” on a quiet little indoor street reminiscent of the neighborhoods many of them grew up in.” Rethinking nursing home design, and its impact on memory care.

From tiny, moss-enshrouded plantation plots to sprawling urban sites, tens of thousands of Black burial grounds lie in ruins, their history fading or lost. Three Black women, shocked by the condition of cemeteries in Washington, Georgia, and Texas, have turned their anger into action. None have prior experience in historic preservation, landscape architecture, or design. But like many others working to save Black cemeteries, they view the work as a sacred trust and payment of a debt to ancestors who led the way.

What does it mean to say games have objective truth in them? Game enthusiasts, look no further. (And you should subscribe to this wonderful newsletter, too.)

Helen Cammock’s I WIll Keep My Soul is a new “prismatic” artist’s book, just out from our friends at Siglio Press. The book also corresponds to a city-wide, multi-site exhibition of film, performance, music, archival documents and books opening in New Orleans in October.

Legendary editor George Gendron interviews legendary everything, Gloria Steinem.

A Native American man was shot at a New Mexico rally acknowledging the removal of a controversial statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate. The rally was organized by Native American group The Red Nation, the attacker was wearing a red MAGA hat. The victim is in stable condition.



Jobs | October 04