Observed | January 22
Eye-watering amounts of money pour into Artificial Intelligence, and new technology empires are being forged before our eyes, but
AI is a house divided by a decades-old rivalry. [BV]
Observed | January 19
“Our lives should be marked not by “comps” and metrics and filters and proofs of concept and virality but by tight circles and improvisation and adventure and lots and lots of creative waste.
And not just to save ourselves, but to save each other.” [JH]
Observed | January 18
How architects write
fictional architecture. [JH]
Beautiful
weather rendering from Will MacNeil. (via Blake Eskin) [BV]
Observed | January 14
A New European Bauhaus? [JH]
Observed | January 13
Though it was later determined to be troll-driven, design twitter went bananas this week over the new
CIA rebrand. [JH]
Women either decide or strongly influence 70% of all automotive purchases yet are 73% more likely to suffer injury in a car crash, and 17% more likely to die than the average man.
A design problem? [JH]
Observed | January 12
Joy, disillusion, success, failure, hiring, finances, office space—just some of the topics in
All in a Day’s Work, a new animated series about being an entrepreneur from our friends at Mailchimp in collaboration with It’s Nice That. [BV]
Observed | January 11
When
Pac-Man arrived in 1980, it revolutionized gaming. The original game is at the root of a rich design tradition, one that goes well beyond detailed graphics and fluid controls. [BV]
Can the story of a pandemic be told in a single headline every day? David Rainbird collected headlines about the pandemic as a way of
making sense of the infodemic that was 2020. [BV]
Observed | January 05
Paul Klee’s notebooks—nearly 4,000 pages of them—are now online. [JH]
Observed | December 30
“On cream-laid paper there is no “forward” button.”
New York Times book critic Dwight Garner on
the lost art of paper correspondence. [JH]
Observed | December 29
Job of the week: Yale’s British Art Center is looking for a new
Design Director. [JH]
Observed | December 21
Renowned Swiss Designer
Armin Hoffman dies at 100. [JH]
Screw mediocrity: Scottish industrial designer Neil Ferrier weighs in on a typographic mistake that turned out to benefit his career. [JH]
“That the cover of a book — something produced with a finite shelf life — could grip us throughout such a bitter, caustic year is either a triumph of artistry or a sign that our collective alarm bells are still not ringing loudly enough.” Matt Dorfman, Art Director for the New York Times Book Review, selects his
favorite covers of 2020. [JH]
Observed | December 17
How custom fonts became the
ultimate corporate flex. (via
James I. Bowie) [BV]
First world problem of the week, or, why graphic design matters on your wine list. Behold:
vinography! [JH]
Italian architect Stefano Boeri introduces prefabricated timber and fabric
pavilions as Covid-19 vaccination stations in public piazzas across Italy beginning in January. (H/T Adina Karp.) [JH]
Observed | December 14
Pantone names its
colors of the year for 2021. [JH]
Apparently
not all architects declare. [JH]
Observed | December 11
“Royalty Now” is an ongoing art project by graphic designer Becca Saladin that reimagines queens, kings, emperors, statesmen, nobles, (and a few famous musicians, scientists and artists) as contemporary people. Follow her on Instagram. [JH]
Forest Young, Vivianne Castillo, Kelly Walters, and Dori Tunstall—among others—on
the new design rules and why they matter. [JH]
Observed | December 10
Currently streaming:
What Next? A virtual symposium discussing luxury as a concept and the ethical and moral questions surrounding it. [BV]
Observed | December 07
One week left to help support St. Bride’s magnificent library—and
contribute to their efforts to digitize it for the rest of us. [JH]
Typography. Esports. Discuss! [JH]
Everything you ever wanted to know about
a rejected Paul Rand logo for Ford Motor Company—from 1966—but were afraid to ask. (With apologies for the term “fancy-schmancy design trends” which would make Mr. Rand spin in his grave.) [JH]
Observed | December 03
Help our friends at Class Action fund their next campaign,
a series of billboards in the hotly-contested state of Georgia. [JH]
Kern in hell! Announcing:
Hell Vetica (via Victoria Brown). [JH]
Observed | November 30
Help our friends at Unit Editions produce a long-overdue monograph on the work of artist and designer
Ed Fella. [JH]
