Illustration

Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E12: Decolonizing Design
Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook is a guidebook to the institutional transformation of design theory and practice by restoring the long-excluded cultures of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.


Dana Arnett, Kevin Bethune
S10E11: Dori Tunstall
Dr. Elizabeth “Dori” Tunstall is the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design.


The Editors
Ridendo
Covers from Ridendo, a humor magazine distributed to French physicians.


Steven Heller
Imagine, Observe, Remember
The poetically enigmatic title says it all: Imagine, Observe, Remember; it is a book about process, memory, remembrance and interpretation.


Steven Heller
Lou Rogers: Suffragist Cartoonist
Rogers was an outspoken reformer, using her voice and body as weapons in the battles for the vote and other fundamental human rights that were denied women.


Debbie Millman
Jessica Hische
A conversation with Jessica Hische about her career, especially after having kids.


Debbie Millman
Chris Ware + Chip Kidd
On this episode Debbie talks to designer Chip Kidd and his good friend, graphic novelist Chris Ware.



Steven Heller
Dave King (RIP)
Last January I thought I had received an email from a ghost.


Debbie Millman
Lynda Barry
On this episode cartoonist Lynda Barry talks about learning how to draw, and the damaging effects of one’s own opinion.



Steven Heller
Booklover’s Guide to Le-Tan
Steven Heller on illustrator Pierre Le-Tan and his daughter Cleo Le-Tan’s A Booklover’s Guide to New York.



Steven Heller
Snatching Satire From The Jaws Of Popular Culture
Caricature is Steve Brodner’s weapon of choice.


Steven Heller
Probable Improbabilities
Steven Heller talks to “Possibilitist” Steven M. Johnson about the reality of his absurdity and his new book Vehicles of the Imagination.


Debbie Millman
Seth
On this episode Debbie talks with Seth, the artist behind the book Palookaville, about why his generation of cartoonists broke away from fantasy.


Steven Heller
Seymour Chwast: Few Words, Many Letters
Seymour Chwast, a man of few words, wishes there were more than 26 letters in the alphabet.


Debbie Millman
Kate Moross
Debbie talks to designer, illustrator, and art director Kate Moross about her early success, her projects, and the importance of over-delivering.


Steven Heller
Anti-War Comics Were No Laughing Matter
The genre of “pro-war” or at least war-themed comics has long dominated the comic book field, but a new book from Craig Yoe reveals that there was an element of dissent in the comics world.


Debbie Millman
Christoph Niemann
Debbie talks to illustrator Christoph Niemann about his singular career as an artistic superhero.


Lily Hansen
Illustrator Ella Paton Thinks We Should Ditch Expectations and Show Our Mistakes
My new philosophy is, Sod it. Just do it. And stop saying “sorry.”


Steven Heller
Born to be Posthumous
Your book on Edward Gorey has been a long term journey for you. I know why I want to spend time reading it, but why did you want to invest so much of your life in Gorey’s head?


Jude Stewart
Enchanted Lion
Why aren’t graphic designers more broadly gaga for children’s literature? Why is kid-lit and children’s illustration considered a niche interest? After all, visual literacy begins for just about everyone with reading picture books; it’s the universal training ground.


Steven Heller
The Faithful Spy
Creating a children’s book about a member of the Nazi resistance.


Marian Bantjes
Heaven
The paradoxical thing about heaven is that it is both highly individualistic and intrinsically social.


Lily Hansen
Tattoo Artist Elisheba Israel on Decision-Making in a Permanent Craft
“Learning to take risks is one of the best things I’ve ever done.”


Lily Hansen
Illustrator Rebecca Green Sketches a Space to be Herself
The first of four profiles of creative people working in Nashville, this one focusing on children’s book illustrator Rebecca Green.


Steven Heller
Paul Rand’s Monkey Modernism
Paul Rand kept a file folder of sketches in his desk with the title “Monkeys and Elephants”. Why?


Melissa Leone
Celestial Bodies
Man’s age-old fascination with the celestial has created countless beautiful—albeit not always accurate—diagrams of the universe.


Melissa Leone
Microbial Illustrations
Illustrated versions of the microscopic designs that make up our world.


Melissa Leone
British Mineralogy
Colored figures intended to elucidate the mineralogy of Great Britain


The Editors
Diagramming Mechanisms
John Pass portrays the inner mechanical workings of apparatuses through his eye for diagrammatic design in these colorful, early-nineteenth century engravings.


Steven Heller
Should A Designer Be Judged By Ideology?
Should designers and illustrators be judged harshly for choosing to make art on the wrong side of history?


Edwin Carels
Training Grounds
A new book out from Ludion Publishers explores at the Quay Brothers training as graphic artists and the artwork that they created.


Molly Young
Puzzling Out William Steig
A new book is a coded exploration of New York City—an account of local customs and affinities, a catalog of macro and microaggressions, a narrative of life in the modern metropolis.


Steven Heller
The Times. A Comic Strip. A Pulitzer Prize.
It is not every day that a comic strip wins the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning—come to think of it, there’s never been one.


Debbie Millman
Richard Haines
Debbie talks to Richard Haines about his late blooming career as an illustrator. “As I’m drawing and I’m not really thinking about it, but I’m always editing information. To note spell everything out. To bring it to someone else.”



Steven Heller
Thanks, Robert Grossman
Bob’s death was unexpected. I felt kicked in the stomach when, on Friday morning, I read an email from his companion, Elaine Louie, announcing the tragic news.


Steven Heller
Fear Of Phallus
In my case, on average of twice a week, editors accused me of allowing one or more illustrators to include an unacceptable banana, kidney, or lozenge shape — and I’m talking about a plain old curvilinear-tipped graphic device that happened to be touching some other shape.


Lilly Smith
Stefan Bucher’s Letterheads: A Zany but Totally Methodical Take on Reinvention
The designer explains why humor is a good tool, how to overcome artistic fears, and what he means by saying he’s a “Victorian gardener of the mind.”


Debbie Millman
Barry Blitt
Debbie talks to New Yorker celebrated cover artist Barry Blitt about where his ideas come from.


Steven Heller
Christoph Niemann’s Creative Powers: A Mystery Investigated
Steven Heller uncovers what makes Christoph Niemann a veritable illustration Superman.


Steven Heller
Chris Ware’s Really Big Novelty Book
The first time I was introduced to Chris Ware’s work was at R.O. Blechman’s Ink Tank office on West 46th Street.


Chris Ware
I Loved to Draw
An excerpt from Chris Ware’s new Monograph.


John Foster
Strange Ink
Works by untrained artists who found inspiration to produce unique works despite a host of impediments.


John Foster
Postcards from the Trenches
Hand-painted postcards from WWI sent home in 1915 and 1916 by a 23-year old German soldier named Otto Schubert.


Debbie Millman
Design Matters from the Archive: Roz Chast
Debbie talks to Roz Chast about how she earned a coveted spot as a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, and how her art is informed by the brutal reality of life.


Michael Bierut
Seymour, An Introduction
In a world of design consultants, information architects, and experience planners, Seymour Chwast is something refreshingly old-fashioned: a commercial artist.



DJ Stout
Jack Unruh
The House on Fairmont


Debbie Millman
Lisa Congdon
On this episode Debbie talks with artist and writer Lisa Congdon about how she sometimes felt like an imposter.


Debbie Millman
Alison Bechdel
Debbie talks to Alicon Bechdel about how identifying herself as a lesbian when she was young lead her into a career as a cartoonist.


John Foster
Fusing Cultures
Painted Bookplates by Traditional Rajasthani Miniaturists



Steven Heller
Comic Bacteria
Huber and Corky



John Foster
Mechanical Mysteries
Drawing widgets in the sixties


Debbie Millman
Design Matters From The Archive: Caroline Paul + Wendy MacNaughton
Debbie talks to illustrator Wendy MacNaughton and author Caroline Paul about their unusually intimate collaboration on a book.



Debbie Millman
Design Matters From The Archive: Marian Bantjes
Debbie talks to Marian Bantjes about her daring typography and her highly ornamental designs.


Debbie Millman
Oliver Jeffers
Debbie talks to artist and illustrator Oliver Jeffers, who explains how illustrating and writing children’s books has changed his fine art painting.



Timothy Young
Insect Men
The Art of Pochoir and the two Messieurs Séguy


Debbie Millman
Chris Ware
Debbie Millman talks to graphic novelist Chris Ware about how Charles Schultz, George Herriman, and Art Spiegelman figured into his life and career, and why empathy is fundamental to his work.



John Foster
Body of Knowledge
A historical overview of anatomical drawing


Rob Walker
Resolutions, Vibrantly Illustrated
Illustrator Linzie Hunter cleverly hand-letters other people’s 2015 resolutions


Rick Poynor
Illustrations by Bohumil Štěpán for Crazy Fairy Tales
Another look at Bohumil Štěpán’s whimsical absurdism



Kathleen Meaney
Comparakeet
How the digital humanities can broaden the learning experience



Laura Tarrish
Hunter | Gatherer: Illustrator Sketchbooks, Pt. III
An interview with the artist known as August Wren



Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Jennifer Daniel’s Texas 35th
Illustrator Jennifer Daniel reimagines Texas’ 35th congressional district: If you can read this, you’re in range.



Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Steve Brodner’s Pennsylvania 7th
Steve Brodner reimagines Pennsyvlania’s Seventh Congressional District three (frightening) ways.



Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Oliver Munday’s Florida 5th
Illustrator Oliver Munday revisualizes Florida’s Fifth Congressional District


Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Lisa Congdon’s North Carolina 4th
Illustrator Lisa Congdon reveals that North Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District is a leafy sea monster.


Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Leif Parsons’ Illinois 4th
Illustrator Leif Parsons reimagines Illinois’ Fourth Congressional District, giving a visual message to voters.


Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: Joe Alterio’s Maryland 3rd
Illustrator Joe Alterio reimagines Maryland’s Third Congressional District in a monstrous animated GIF.


Rob Walker
Spawn of Gerrymander: A Series
A week-long project in which six top illustrators visualize some of the most contorted congressional districts in the country.


Rick Poynor
The Mysteries of France:
A Gothic Guidebook

Guide de la France mystérieuse, illustrated by Roman Cieslewicz, is a surreal beast of a travel book.


Rick Poynor
The Body as Factory: Anatomy of an Image
Peeling back the skin of a New Scientist cover illustration by Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson.


Alex Knowlton
Miami Nice
Alex Knowlton reviews this year's ADC Festival of Art + Craft in Advertising and Design in Miami Beach.



Observed
See America
Over 75 years ago the government first commissioned posters to showcase the country's most stunning natural features under the banner "See America".


Alexandra Lange
Playing With Design: Fredun Shapur
Add Fredun Shapur to the pantheon of modern designers making winning and sculptural objects for children.


Gideon Amichay
No, No, No, No, No, Yes
In this excerpt from his book No, No, No, No, No, Yes. Insights From A Creative Journey, Gideon Amichay pushes past no to yes.


Rick Poynor
Martin Sharp: People, Politics and Pop
Martin Sharp rediscovered: drawings and collages from the book People, Politics and Pop: Australians in the Sixties.


Rick Poynor
Martin Sharp: From Satire to Psychedelia
The late Martin Sharp was a visual innovator whose work erased artificial distinctions between applied image-making and fine art.



Observed
The Psychedelic and Grotesque Proto-GIFs of the 19th Century
Richard Balzer has spent the past five years curating an online collection of his phenakistoscopes, praxinoscopes, and zoetropes — "optic toys".



Observed
Seven Fantastic Vintage Anatomy Drawings
Popular Science's gallery of seven of the most fantastic anatomy drawings from the Middle Ages.


Rick Poynor
Bohumil Stepan’s Family Album of Oddities
Bohumil Stepan’s Familienalbum presents a series of surreally equipped and irreverently modified collages of his family.


Rick Poynor
Bohumil Stepan’s Gallery of Erotic Humor
Mapp Editions has released a digital version of Bohumil Stepan’s Galerie (1968), a surreal collection of collages and drawings about the relationship between the sexes.


Alexandra Lange
A World of Paste and Paper
Today's obsession with digital renderings sparked two exhibitions that suggest a handmade, but far from quaint, corrective.


John Foster
The Voynich Manuscript
Accidental Mysteries for July 14, 2013 focuses on the rare and undecipherable Voynich manuscript.


Alexandra Lange
An ABC of the ABCs
Were you a child? Did you read books? Then the NYPL's "ABC of It" serves as a portal back in time.



Observed
Flowering Pages
A little-known but remarkable collection of treasures from The Garden Club of America illustrates the activities of the premier American gardening association over the course of a century.


Rick Poynor
The Age of Wire and String Rebooted
Granta’s new edition of The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus is a landmark of experimental illustration.



Debbie Millman
Wendy MacNaughton + Caroline Paul
Wendy MacNaughton and Caroline Paul on a journey from advertising to Rwanda to illustration, and from Stanford to firefighter to author.



Debbie Millman
Sara Blake
Debbie Millman talks to Sara Blake about collaborating with her sister, creating portraits of 100 girls and illustrating NBA players.


John Foster
What’s Inside?
Accidental Mysteries for February 17, 2013 focuses on what's inside: anatomical drawings.



Debbie Millman
Sophie Blackall
Sophie Blackall discusses learning to draw, painting vs. illustration and her favorite postings from Craigslist.


Rick Poynor
A Dictionary of Surrealism and the Graphic Image
An alphabetical guide to graphic designers influenced by Surrealism and to some key Surrealist concepts.


John Foster
Accidental Mysteries
David Rumsey's collection of more than 150,000 maps is one of the largest private collections in the United States. Herewith, a selection.


John Foster
Accidental Mysteries
Jason D'Aquino is a miniaturist who creates on an incredibly small scale and whose preferred canvas is, perhaps not surprisingly, a matchbook.



Debbie Millman
Marion Deuchars
Marion Deuchars on the expressiveness of hand lettering, how drawing is an intensive form of looking, and the need to be messy when creating art.


John Foster
Accidental Mysteries
Comic selections from the 
Lewis Wayne Gallery in Dallas, Texas — one of the nation’s largest galleries of comic book art. 


Alexandra Lange
Bad Taste True Confessions: Erté
True confessions about my own bad taste. I loved Erté. Did you?


Alexandra Lange
Dot Supreme
On the enduring power of the simplest shape, from corporations to children’s books.


Rick Poynor
The Museum of Communicating Objects
Orhan Pamuk’s The Innocence of Objects is an illuminating guide to his Museum of Innocence in Istanbul.


Rick Poynor
Brian Eno’s “Music for Films”
On Brian Eno and a competition to design an alternative sleeve for Music for Films


Rick Poynor
From the Archive: Graphic Metallica
Heavy metal’s extremity, as a set of aesthetic choices and as a way of life, exerts an enduring fascination.


John Foster
Accidental Mysteries
Accidental Mysteries, a weekly cabinet of visual curiosities curated by John Foster, highlights images of design, art, architecture and ephemera brought to light by the magic of the digital age. This week's focus is paper folding art.



Amelia Lacy
Gene & Jackie Lacy
Gene and Jackie Lacy, Indianapolis-based graphic designers and illustrators practicing from the 1950s through the 1980s.


Rick Poynor
The Covers of J.G. Ballard’s Crash: An Update
Some recent covers of J.G. Ballard’s disturbing Crash, a notoriously hard novel for designers to interpret.


Rick Poynor
Motif Magazine: The World Made Visible
Motif magazine, founded in 1958, anticipated a new way of seeing, documenting and appreciating the “visible world.”


Rick Poynor
John McHale and the Expendable Ikon
Artist, graphic designer, information theorist, architectural critic, sociologist, futurist: it’s time to rediscover John McHale.


Alexandra Lange
Want to Buy A Valentine?
You can buy a valentine handmade by someone else. You can send your beloved a vintage card using an app. But where's the romance in that?


Rick Poynor
The Evil Genius of David Shrigley
British artist David Shrigley, subject of a major exhibition in London, is forever tempting and testing the viewer.



Debbie Millman
Malcolm Gladwell
A live episode of Design Matters with Debbie Millman withe special guest Malcolm Gladwell.


Rick Poynor
Man in a Bowler: Illustration after Magritte
By copying Magritte’s subject matter and method, illustrators ended up making a great artist look hackneyed.


Rick Poynor
How to Cover an Impossible Book
Tadeusz Borowski’s book This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen poses a visual challenge for designers.


Rick Poynor
Literary Horror from the Chapman Brothers
British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman have created an image of sublime horror for the cover of Granta magazine.


Rick Poynor
Andrzej Klimowski: Transmitting the Image
Andrzej Klimowski, author of a new book, On Illustration, has used the medium to create a compelling alternative reality.


Rick Poynor
Speculative Fiction, Speculative Design
The cover of England Swings SF is one of those prescient imaginative leaps that vaulted so far it disappeared from the historical record.



Julie Lasky
Between Two Convex Mirrors: A Conversation with Tomi Ungerer
Interview with illustrator and book artist Tomi Ungerer.


Rick Poynor
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?
A DVD cover for the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly uses the blindingly obvious symbol that just keeps on giving.


Rick Poynor
Unearthly Powers: Surrealism and SF
Richard Powers, auteur of the paperback cover, was a key figure linking science fiction and Surrealism.


Rick Poynor
Stewart Mackinnon: Ruptured and Remade
Why, at the height of his early success, did a brilliant British illustrator decide to walk away and what happened next?


Rick Poynor
Starowieyski’s Graphic Universe of Excess
In Franciszek Starowieyski’s posters, desire, sexuality, monstrosity, madness and death conjoin in some of the most outrageous images found in graphic design.


Rick Poynor
An Unknown Master of Poster Design
Karel Teissig might just be the best poster designer you have never heard of.


Rick Poynor
On My Shelf: Richard Neville’s Playpower
Martin Sharp’s cover design is a garden of queasily decadent delights where the joke is probably on the reader.



Mark Lamster
Gerd Arntz: Design Icon
Gerd Arntz: A design icon who designed icons.


Michael Bierut
At the Movies with Javier Mariscal
Chico & Rita is a new animated film by Spanish designer Javier Mariscal and director Fernando Trueba.


Rick Poynor
What Does H. P. Lovecraft Look Like?
In a gilded age of adaptations: films, TV series, theatrical productions, H. P. Lovecraft’s short novel At the Mountains of Madness, is re-envisioned for a new generation.



Debbie Millman
The Art of Poetry
Debbie Millman interview Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman, plus a slideshow of 67 Poetry covers.



Michael Bierut
James Victore: Straight Up
"Few designers have done more to render typography foundries irrelevant than Victore. The human hand, his hand, is always in evidence." Michael Bierut on James Victore's work.



Christopher Mount
Wild at Heart: Tadanori Yokoo
Essay adapted from the catalog for "The Complete Posters of Tadanori Yokoo," an exhibition running through September 12, 2010, at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan.



Rob Walker
When Funny Goes Viral
Taking Lulz (Sort of) Seriously.



Gerry Shamray
Harvey and Me
A remembrance of comic artist and graphic novelist Harvey Pekar by an illustrator who worked with him throughout his career, fellow Clevelander Gerry Shamray.



Ernest Beck
Edward Koren in Retrospect
Essay on The New Yorker cartoonist Edward Koren.



Ken Botnick, and Ira Raja
The Subtle Technology of Indian Artisanship

How India's craftsmen offer lessons in design thinking.





Steven Heller
Home Is the Sailor, Home from the Sea
In 1943, Margaret Wise Brown, the children’s book author signed a contract with Harper & Brothers to publish The Fathers Are Coming Home.



Michael Bierut
The Figure / Ground Relationship
Designing is the most important thing, but it’s not the only thing. All of the other things a designer designer does all day are important too, and you have to do them with intelligence, enthusiasm, dedication, and love. Together, those things create the background that makes the work meaningful, and, when you do them right, that makes the work good.



Steven Heller
Covering the Good Books
When reading was more fundamental than tweeting, Time Life Books played a significant role in getting the general public to acquire books on almost every subject.



Steven Heller
Father of Shrek, Grandfather of Tweet
William Steig was the father of vanity license plate abbreviations and the grandfather of the Instant Messenger, SMS, iChat, and Twitter shorthand.



Rob Walker
A Successful Failure
Yiying Lu is an artist and designer in Sydney, Australia. One image in her portfolio is of a peaceful whale held aloft by a small flock of birds, aka as the “Fail Whale” of Twitter.



Steven Heller
Draw Me Schools Of Commercial Art
Scores of advertisements, like the famous "Draw Me!" matchbook cover, offered willing aspirants the big chance to earn "$65, $80 and more a week" in "a pleasant, profitable Art career." Although the ads often shared space at the back of cheesy pulp magazines with offers to learn, well, brain surgery at home, they offered a legitimate way for anyone with a modicum of talent, limited means and an existing job to train in their spare time for a new profession.



Steven Heller
In Praise of the Anthropomorphic
Today I’m going to go out on a limb. I’ve decided that the next big thing in illustration, is one of the oldest conceits ever: Anthropomorphism, “the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to non-human creatures and beings, natural and supernatural phenomena, material states and objects or abstract concepts.”



Steven Heller
Breakdowns: A Review
Steven Heller reviews Art Spiegelman’s Breakdowns, his first anthology of autobiographical and experimental comics were originally published in 1978. Thirty years later, a new edition, Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist As A Young %@(#!, is finally out.



Steven Heller
Where Have You Gone R. Cobb?




Steven Heller
Clipping Art, One Engraving At a Time
These books, universally known as clip art books, some edited by Dick Sutphen and many others published by Dover and Chelsea House, were owned by almost every American illustrator, designer, and art director who found solace in them when an idea was needed but their imaginations were not entirely up to the task. This is a personal remembrance and homage to them.



Paula Scher
It’s How You Said It
Paula Scher: “The problem with the New Yorker’s controversial Obama cover is not that it’s dangerous and tasteless. The problem is that it isn’t dangerous or tasteless enough.”



William Drenttel
Thoughts on Democracy, July 4 2008




Debbie Millman
Laurie Rosenwald
On this episode of Design Matters with Debbie Millman, Debbie talks with graphic designer, artist and actress Laurie Rosenwald.



Debbie Millman
Stefan Bucher
An interview with graphic designer, illustrator and Daily Monster creator Stefan Bucher.



Debbie Millman
Luba Lukova
An interview with award-winning illustrator Luba Lukova, whose work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Library of Congress and Bibliotheque Nationale in France. 


Debbie Millman
Maira Kalman
An interview with the remarkable Maira Kalman — the closest thing we in the United States have to a National Treasure.



Debbie Millman
Art Chantry
Art Chantry works and lives in Seattle where his ideas and personal style branded the look of popular culture, not only in the northwest and its bohemian underground, but also in the pop and alternative culture of the last few decades.  



Debbie Millman
Christoph Niemann
An interview with German-born designer and illustrator Christoph Niemann, who claims to have only one trick: “sitting in front of a white piece of paper and thinking, staring and drawing until my head hurts.”  



William Drenttel
David Hughes: Caricaturist of Our Time
But my favorite, in recent years, is the British illustrator David Hughes. I yearn for his drawings, look for them in my favorite publications, and save them whenever and wherever I find them.



Observed


Cheryl Holmes's next book documents the history of the question she has been asking for decades—where are the Black designers?— along with related questions that are urgent to the design profession: where did they originate, where have they been, and why haven't they been represented in design histories and canons? With a foreword by Crystal Williams, President of Rhode Island School of Design, HERE: Where the Black Designers Are will be published next fall by Princeton Architectural Press.

Can ballot design be deemed unconstitutional? More on the phenomenon known as "Ballot Siberia," where un-bracketed candidates often find themselves disadvantaged by being relegated to the end of the ballot.

Designing the Modern World—Lucy Johnston's new monograph celebrating the extraordinary range of British industrial designer (and Pentagram co-founder) Sir Kenneth Grange—is just out from our friends at Thames&Hudson. More here.

Good news to start your week: design jobs are in demand!

An interview with DB | BD Minisode cohost and The State of Black Design founder Omari Souza about his conference,  and another about his new book. (And a delightful conversation between Souza and Revision Path host Maurice Cherry here.) 

What happens when you let everyone have a hand in the way things should look and feel and perform—including the kids? An inspiring story about one school’s inclusive design efforts

Graphic designer Fred Troller forged a Swiss modernist path through corporate America in a career that spanned five decades. The Dutch-born, Troller—whose clients included, among others, IBM, Faber Castell, Hoffmann LaRoche, Champion International, and the New York Zoological Society—was also an educator, artist, and sculptor. Want more? Help our friends at Volume raise the funds they both need and deserve by supporting the publication of a Troller monograph here.

The Independence Institute is less a think tank than an action tank—and part of that action means rethinking how the framing of the US Constitution might benefit from some closer observation. In order to ensure election integrity for the foreseeable future, they propose a constitutional amendment restoring and reinforcing the Constitution’s original protections.

Design! Fintech! Discuss amongst yourselves!

The art (and design) of “traffic calming” is like language: it’s best when it is extremely clear and concise, eliminating the need for extra thinking on the receiving end. How bollards, arrows, and other design interventions on the street promote public safety for everyone. (If you really want to go down the design-and-traffic rabbit hole with us here, read about how speculative scenario mapping benefits from something called “digital twins”.)

Opening this week and running through next fall at Poster House in New York, a career retrospective for Dawn Baillie, whose posters for Silence of the Lambs, Little Miss Sunshine, and Dirty Dancing, among countless others, have helped shape our experience of cinema. In a field long-dominated by men, Bailie's posters span some thirty-five years, an achievement in itself. (The New York Times reviews it here.)

Can't make it to Austin for SXSW this year? In one discussion, a selection of designers, policymakers, scientists, and engineers sought identify creative solutions to bigger challenges. (The “design track” ends today, but you can catch up with all the highlights here.)

Should there be an Oscar for main title design?

Design contributes hugely to how we spend (okay, waste) time online. But does that mean that screen addiction is a moral imperative for designers? Liz Gorny weighs in, and Brazillian designer Lara Mendonça (who, and we love this, also self-identifies as a philosopher) shares some of her own pithy observations.

Oscar nominees, one poster at a time.

Ellen Mirojnick—the costume designer behind Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and Oppenheimer, for which she is 2024 Oscar nominee—shares some career highlights from forty years in film. (Bonus content: we kicked off Season Nine of The Design of Business  | The Business of Design with this conversation.)

Erleen Hatfield, of The Hatfield Group, is the engineer behind many innovative buildings, including the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the Atlanta Falcons, whose roof opens like a camera aperture to reveal the sky. Now, she's also one of the newly-minted AIA fellows, an honor awarded to architects—only 3% of their 98,000+ AIA members—who have made significant contributions to the profession.  

Anamorph, a new filmmaking and technology company co-founded by filmmaker Gary Hustwit (of Helvetica fame) and digital artist Brendan Dawes, wants to reshape the cinematic experience with a proprietary generative technology that can create films that are different every time they’re shown.

Viewers seem more concerned with Biden's rounded smartphone than with his policies. (We're not discussing the age of the man, here—just his phone!)

Claiming he is “not very good at design,” Riken Yamamoto, a 78-year old Japanese architect, wins the coveted Pritzger Prize. Notes the jury: "Yamamoto’s architecture serves both as background and foreground to everyday life, blurring boundaries between its public and private dimensions, and multiplying opportunities for people to meet spontaneously”.

Citizen outcry over Southwest's new cabin design—and in particular, it's new-and-improved-seats—may not be likely to  result in changes any time soon, but the comments (Ozempic seats!) are highly entertaining. (“Is there an option to just stand?”)

More than 50 years ago, a small group of design educators tried to decolonize design in Africa, hoping to teach African designers how to use research and design for their people and their nations by leveraging their own indigenous knowledge and local customs. While their pioneering effort was suppressed after a few short years by the colonial authorities, their approach to teaching design still resonates today: consider the story of François-X. N.I. Nsenga, an indigenous African designer who grew up in Belgian Rwanda and studied in British Kenya at Africa's first university-based design program. For more on the cultural history, design philosphy, and the "Europeanisation" of colonial Africa, you'll find a conversation with Nsenga in Gjoko Muratovski's book, Research for Designers: A Guide to Methods and Practice

At turns dystopian and delightful, the future of AI-based digital assistants seem poised to communicate through the “emotion and information display” of new constellations of hardware. (Including … orbs!) Like concept cars, they're not on the market just yet, but developmental efforts at more than a few telecoms suggest they're clearly on the horizon. More here.

Jha D Amazi, a principal and the director of the Public Memory and Memorials Lab for MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society) Design Group, examines how spatializing memory can spark future collective action and provide a more accurate and diverse portrayal of our nation's complicated past. She gave this year’s annual Richard Saivetz ’69 Memorial Architectural Lecture at Brandeis last month, entitled, “Spatializing Memory”.

Self-proclaimed “geriatric starlet” and style icon Iris Apfel has died. She was 102.

“You know, you’ve got to try to sneak in a little bit of humanity,” observes Steve Matteson, the designer behind Aptos—Microsoft's new “default” font. “I did that by adding a little swing to the R and the double stacked g." Adds Jon Friedman, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for design: “It’s both quirky and creates a more natural feel that brings in some of the serif font ‘je ne sais quoi’ to it”. Resistant to change (or simply longing for Calibri), font geeks are not having it. Fun fact? Aptos was originally called Bierstadt. You may well imagine, as we did, that this was a nod to the 19th century German-American landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt—but the actual translation is “Beer City”. 

In Dallas, the Better Block Foundation is sponsoring a design contest called Creating Connections, aimed at addressing the growing epidemic of loneliness by exploring the impact of design on how people connect with others.

Good design is invisible, but bad design is unignorable. Elliot Vredenburg, Associate Creative Director at Mother Design, bares it all.

Arab design is a story of globalism, evidenced through collaborations with the Arab diaspora living, working, and creating abroad, and with the expatriate community in the Middle East and North Africa. More on the highlights (and insights) from Doha Design 2024 here.

Organizations that embrace diversity tend to foster innovation, challenge ingrained thought patterns, and enhance financial performance. Its true benefits emerge when leaders and employees cultivate a sense of inclusion. How architecture is reckoning with the cultural and economic challenges of—and demands for—a more inclusive workforce.



Jobs | March 19